The Coming Of War An Account Of The Remarkable Events Leading To The War Of 1812

973.52 C3Uc 60!M2fi
Carr, Albert H Z

The cooing of war; an account
of the remarkable events leading
to the War of 1&2. Garden
City, H.T.. Doubleday, I960.

383P- 14.95

THE COMING OF

Other Historical Books by the Author

JUGGERNAUT: THE PATH OF DICTATORSHIP

MEN OF POWER

NAPOLEON SPEAKS

THE COMING OF "WAR

An Account of the Remarkable Events
Leading to the War of 1812

BY ALBERT Z. CARR

Doubleday & Company, Inc., Garden City, New Yoik

1960

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 60-11377
Copyright 1960 by Albert Z. Can

All Rights Reserved

Printed in the United States of America
First Edition

Design: Charles Kaplan

FOR AJSNE

Contents

Introduction 9

PART ONE: THE PEACEMAKERS

1782-1783

ONE: THE SHELBURNE WAY 17

TWO: ANXIETIES OF A PATRIOT 31

THREE: THE RAYNEVAL AFFAIR 38

FOUR: PANDORA'S TREATY 49

PART TWO: THE TROUBLE BEGINS

1783-1792

ONE: SECOND THOUGHTS OF A SECRETARY OF STATE 61
TWO: AMERICA BECOMES CAPABLE OF WAR 71

THREE: THE NOOTKA CRISIS 76
FOUR: GRENVILLE VS, JEFFERSON 82

PART THREE: SHADOW OF THE FUTURE

1793-1802

ONE: PERSONA NON GRATA 91
TWO: THE SUCCESSFUL MAN 1O2
THREE: "THIS DAMNED TREATY" 116

FOUR: x Y z 136

FIVE: WITCH HUNT 160

SIX: THE PENDULUM SWINGS 167

SEVEN: A TIME FOR HOPE 176

PART FOUR: THE POUNDING SURF OF CRISIS

1802-1812

ONE: THE TRIGGERING OF WAR 189
TWO: THE HEADY WINE OF EMPIRE 213
THREE: "WAR IN DISGUISE" 224
FOUR: PASSIVE RESISTANCE 234
FIVE:

SIX: THE
SKVKN*: TH$ CADORE LETTSEt 273

(continued)

[ 8 ] CONTENTS

PART FOUR (continued):

EIGHT: VOICES OF THE FRONTIER 2Q2

NINE: SCRUPLE AND INHIBITION 301

TEN: THE CRILLON COMEDY 310
ELEVEN: THE BULLET OF CHANCE 318
TWELVE: "CHAFF BEFORE THE WIND" 325
THIRTEEN: "GREATEST OF ALL THE LESSONS" 333

CONCLUSION: ON THE COMING OF WAR

BIBLIOGRAPHY 364

INDEX 377

Introduction

For decades prior to 1812, England and America carried on a bitter diplo-
matic contest marked by sporadic violence, but they managed to avoid open
warfare. Although they were on the brink of war in 1794, and again in 1807,
1809, and 1810, each time the danger was met by negotiation, and was
followed by revived hopes of peace. Then all at once, in a crisis no more
serious than those which had gone before, a new combination of circum-
stances pushed President James Madison to his reluctant decision that the
war must be fought.

In many respects the forces that generated the War of 1812 were a rudi-
mentary anticipation of the pressures of our own era. Then as now, the
minds of men were focused on the personalities and transient crises of high
politics, while the world below was in the grip of a vast social upheaval.
Then as now, a swelling surge in the populations of the great powers was
dislocating established ways of life; new inventions and techniques were
breaking familiar economic and military patterns; comfortable ideas about
the proper organization of society were being challenged by startling doc-
trines of radical change. Then, as in the years prior to 1917 and 1941,
America, in spite of fancied isolation, was gradually sucked into the vortex
of a foreign struggle for world dominion.

Professor Herbert Butterfield of Cambridge University, in his History and
Human Relations, expresses the arresting thought that the function of
history is to help us realize the problems of the past as problems of the
present, or even of the future.

"As the historiography of a given episode comes to be further removed
from the passions of those who were active in the drama, it uncovers
at the basis of the story a fundamental human predicament . . . Con-
temporaries fail to see the predicament or refuse to recognize its
genuineness . . . [It] is only with the progress of historical science
that men come really to recognize that there was a terrible knot al-
most beyond the ingenuity of man to untie."

Time has given us enough perspective so that we can now trace with
some assurance the main strands of a the terrible kaoif as it took shape in
the years before 1812, |We can see that thepressures towardlwarstwimediiot
merely from political events, but from the passionate attachment qf meti to
their established ways, 'from tfaetr desperate rductabcse to <&jdatti
ideas and modify laggard institutions in the face"

[ 1O ] INTRODtJCTlON

of world power. There were of course continuous provocations on both
sides, bursts of indignation, mutual threats and abuse, but beneath this
emotional effervescence was the driving urge of the two nations to escape
from a sense of profound frustration. Most Englishmen and Americans at
the time, even those who did not want war, felt a sense of relief when it
came. Nerve tissue had worn thin; whatever its perils, the war put an end
to tensions and uncertainties which had been too long endured.

The coming of the War of 1812 exemplifies an obvious but often neg-
lected fact: that a nation challenges another in the fatally provocative terms
preliminary to war only because its leaders have chosen to use such terms.
The passions of the ordinary citizen may be whipped into a frenzy by
actual events or by artificial propaganda, but his passions in themselves do
not produce the war unless the country's leaders yield to them. War expresses
limitations of the leaders in at least one of the combatant countries their
mental limitations, which prevent them from seeing possible values in diplo-
matic negotiation without war; their moral limitations, which make them
callous to human interests other than their own; and their physical limita-
tions, which may result in a flagging of energy and a consequent deadening
of the imaginative faculties necessary to preserve peace.

The "causes" which historians often assign for wars desire for territory,
economic competition, religious antagonism, and the like are not truly
causes. They are only motives for conflict which persist in peacetime as
well as in war. Where leaders on both sides are competent men dedicated
to peace, these pressures are adjusted without *war. But for the firmness of
George Washington the United States in 1794 would have fougjht England.
Most Americans in 1797 wanted war with France, but John Adams insisted
on continued diplomatic relations. In 1807 Thomas Jefferson resisted
popular pressure for war after England had repeatedly outraged American
patriotic feelings. Regardless of motive, a war usually does not occur until
the leaders of a nation the small group of personalities who control the
government's official actions issue the irrevocable order to commence
firing.

For that reason 1 considerable amount of attention has been given in
these pages to the individuals who held the historical stage as the eighteenth
century ended and the nineteenth beg^n. The ways in which they obtained
and exercised power, their motives, attitudes, beliefs, and idiosyncracies are
not only a valid part of the narrative; they touch its very heart. One might
as well try to explain the human body without reference t its bloodstream
as to describe a passage of history without recognizing the constant inter-
action between social forces and personality. There is no way of disen-
tangling the event from the man, and in the fusion of the two lies much
of the fascination of the past.

INTRODUCTION [ H ]

This is not to suggest that the individual, while he may move and shake
the age, actually sets its course. On the contrary, it often seems as if the
larger decisions of leaders are compelled rather than willed as if their choice
is actually quite narrow, despite a superficial appearance of self-assertion.
The telling stroke of politics may turn out, under close analysis, to be some-
thing which its author did only with much reluctance. A keen ear for the
whispers of necessity is the great man's final reliance. His fortune is made
or broken not so much by his plans as by the quality of his instinctive
response to events coming out of the blue. Of course, few statesmen care
to admit the extent to which they are prodded by the unexpected and
dependent on the unpredictable. In retrospect, they will not infrequently
let it be understood that they controlled or dominated situations to which,
in fact, they had only reacted. As Kipling says, "Men who stand or fall by
the errors of their opponents may be forgiven if they turn Chance into
Design/'

A degree of skepticism especially needs to be brought to the personal
statements and memoirs in which many national heroes have presented
themselves to posterity. For example, Napoleon Bonaparte, in his rueful,
boastful, reminiscent days on St. Helena, told his biographer, Las Cases,
that it was he who had "developed the measures which compelled America
to fight England in 1812." This was a characteristic overstatement. His
power to manipulate events had never been so godlike as he wished the
world to believe. He, too, was a creature of circumstance. To be sure, he
had an extraordinary intuition of political reality, and like a skillful surgeon
was from time to time able to touch diplomatic nerves to which the American
government responded, almost by reflex. Three times, unmistakably, he
turned American bellicosity away from France and toward England. But
this is far from saying that he brought about the war.

The large impersonal forces and odd chances that led to the coniict
expressed themselves through many major personalities of the period, be-
sides Napoleon. His special role ky in the fact that he knew more clearly
than tie rest what he was doing. For in his time, as in our own, the coil of
war was wound up largely by men who were convinced that they were
working for peace. There was Lord Shelburae, who hoped for lasting amity
between England and America; John Jay and Alexander Hamilton, who
sought to conciliate British opinion; William Pitt, who tried to avoid the
American war; John Adams, who wished no part in European embroil-
ments; George Canning, who relied for peace on the techniques of diplo-
macy; Thomas Jefferson, who considered war a menace to democracy;
Tecumseh, who wished only to protect his people; and many another. These
men tried to restrain the haughty JMtisfa sea captains, tfee arrogant WeM:
Indian platoters the sharp New England mamufactuicv the Gauadiaa fur

[ 12 ] INTRODUCTION

traders, the firebrand Ohio editors, the intriguing French diplomats, the
embittered Irish <2migr&, the fanatical Indians, and the southern planters
who saw war as a solution for their special problems. The advocates of peace
were powerful, they were ardent, but again and again their well-intended
actions merely provided new grounds of hostility, again and again their
hopes were dashed as some spectacular coincidence played into the hands
of the war parties. In the end, chance, as always, proved to be the master
of politics.

While the political pattern of the period with which this story deals has
much in common with our own era, in spirit we are almost as far away from
it as we are from ancient Greece. Its optimistic faith in the power of reason,
its respect for form and tradition, its slow communications and puny instru-
ments of destruction created a political atmosphere as different from the
one we breathe (with its charge of strontium 90) as a stately minuet is
different from the mutating rhythms of jazz. Even the greatest poets of
that time could not in their wildest flights of imagination guess at the
colossal forces which science was preparing to release, and which would
test as never before the adaptability of the human species.

Yet althougjh men then had only a few technical contrivances, such as
guns and telescopes, with which to shrink distance, their thoughts roamed
high and far. Intelligence of an extraordinary richness and complexity
marked the period, especially in the field of statesmanship. And perhaps
this was in part because statesmen then did not have to stuff their minds
with so many facts and statistics, file so many reports, give so many inter-
views, make so many speeches, and had time to concentrate on concepts,
principles, and personalities. Their techniques of communication were piti-
fully inferior to our own, but the men concerned seem to have had more
of substance to communicate. Unable to pick up a telephone, compelled
to write numerous and lengthy letters for the careful scrutiny of critical
minds, they had to think deeply and argue closely. Whatever the reason,
the game of international diplomacy was never played more skillfully than
in the world's chancelleries a century aad more ago. At no other period of
history were the wagers made and the dice tossed by gamblers so absorbed
in the play, and at the isame time so well-developed as human beings. There
was an abundance then, or so it seems by comparison with our own time,
of men of universal outlook, profound understanding of human nature,
and power of expression men of talent, of learning, of discriminating taste,
and of open mind. A Winston Churchill would not have been quite so
unique in the age which produced Franklin, Washington, Jefferson, Hamil-
ton, Fox, Pitt, and Napoleon. It is true that the statesmen of that age did
not succeed, any more than those of our own time, in mastering the
"fundamental human predicament/ 1 But perhaps they came doser to an

INTRODUCTION 13

understanding of the nature of that predicament than most contemporary
men of power, and perhaps we can learn something from their experience.
A comprehensive description of the historical road to any important war
would of course fill many volumes. This book certainly does not pretend
to be the whole story, but it may approximate the essential story. So as not
to impede its flow, some thousands of references notes which once threat-
ened to clot these pages have been omitted. It will be recognized that
the book is essentially an informal narrative. At some points, in recon-
structing the motives of individual statesmen where the documentary
evidence is not conclusive, reasoned estimates of the information known
to them and impressionistic appraisals of their states of mind have been
allowed to supplement the factual record.

I am deeply grateful to Dr. Lawrence S. Finkelstein of the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace for his kindness in providing an
invaluable general critique of the manuscript, and for perceptive and
helpful readings from the standpoint of the specialized historian by Dr.
Roger H. Brown of Harvard University, and Dr, David L. Jacobson of
Princeton University. (It is hardly necessary to add that responsibility
for all statements made and views expressed in the book is wholly mine.)
Warm thanks go also to Mrs. Elizabeth Harriett Gordon for the high
competence with which she prepared the manuscript for publicaton. The
Bibliography suggests the extent of my obligation to the many eminent
historians and biographers on whose work I have drawn.

A.Z.C.
Truro, Mass.

PART ONE

THE PEACEMAKERS

1782-1783

CHAPTER ONE

The Skelfoiirne Way

i. Stocks Fall in London

The stream of events leading to the War of 1812 can conveniently be
entered a generation earlier, in 1782. The choice of this year is by no means
arbitrary. The diplomatic adventures of 1782 were largely responsible for the
character of the treaty of peace signed a few months later by England
and the United States, and which contained the seeds of future violent
dispute. As is often the way, the ending of the last war marked the beginning
of the troubles that led to the next. Thirty years before the dilemma of 1812
presented itself to President Madison, it had begun to evolve.

Seventeen eighty-two, it will be recalled, found western Europe in a state
of bubbling ferment.^The main topic of the time was the exhausting sea
struggle which France, Spain, and Holland were waging against weary Eng-
land in the hope of pulling her down from her high place^ under the guise
of aid to the American revolutionists. But beneath the surface of the war,
issues greater than naval power and colonial empire were asserting them-
selves. Change was in the air. New ideas agitated the minds of men; new
movements shook their politics; new discoveries excited their imaginations.
The almost Punic commerce that had ruled the world was yielding ground
as the industrial revolution gnawed at the established organizations and
ways of society. A far higher proportion of available money than ever before
was coming into the tills of manufacturers and tradesmen; and their political
influence rose with their wealth, threatening the age-long hold of the landed
gentry on the governments of the great nations. At the same time, soaring
birth rates were pressing hard on available supplies of food and housing, and
the degraded condition of urban labor sent waves of unrest through the
slums of the great cities.

England especially seethed with potentiality and frustration. The British
had swallowed the humiliation of defeat at the hands of Washington's
hodgepodge army; they had glumly put up with food scarcity and high
prices; but with each day they became increasingly outraged by the war's
futility. Military victories might justify hard times and shrinking profits, but
where weie the victories? Membeis of Parliament wrong tfeefr .hpods over
the government's folly in not having accepted a proposal by the French a
year earlier for a negotiated peace, which would have allowed tie
to i^etair^ many of theirs American colonies. But a>t that

[ l8 ] THE PEACEMAKERS 1782-1783

had been high: General Benedict Arnold had just deserted from Washing-
ton's army, and there were rumors of dissension between France and
America. In the resulting burst of false confidence, stubborn King George
III had refused even to consider the French offer. Then came the shocking
news of Cornwallis's surrender at Yorktown. The effect on public opinion
was shown by a panic in stock prices on the Royal Exchange. British Con-
solidated Funds, the mirror of the government's credit, fell by over 50 per
cent Once the men of money had reappraised the outlook and found it
bleak, the will to fight of the politicians thinned rapidly away. A powerful
attack was promptly launched in Parliament on the war-to-the-end Tory
government of Lord North, and late in February 1782, his imminent fall
was widely rumored.

2. Dr. Franklin Writes a Letter

London newspapers foretelling a change in the government were carried
across the Channel to Paris, where they were read with enthusiasm, as pre-
saging the end of the war. Among the diplomats stimulated by the news
was the man generally recognized as one of the two greatest living
Americans, Benjamin Franklin, then the envoy of the Continental Congress
to the court of France. He was especially interested in learning that one of
the leaders of the opposition to North was an old friend of his, the Earl of
Shelburne, who was profoundly sympathetic to American aspirations. If
Shdbume were to have a place in the next British government, could their
personal friendship help to speed the anticipated peace? It was a question
of great moment to Franklin. The survival of the rickety confederation of
American states might depend on days gained or lost in ending the war.
Lacking executive powers, disorganized, disastrously short of money, the
Congress could barely maintain a pretense of influence over the contentious,
suspicious, and jealously sovereign states. There was a sense of desperation
in Philadelphia. The Secretary of Foreign Affairs to the Congress, Robert
Livingston, had written to Franklin that "the treasury is empty . . . The
people pant for peace." George Washington himself summed up the military
position: 'The long sufferance of the army is almost exhausted. It is high
time for peace," Recruits for his weary forces were so few that he even
advocated the enrollment of Hessian prisoners in the army. A little more
war, regardless of how the battles went, and the flimsy federal structure
might easily disintegrate, and the chief gains of tie revolution be lost. No
man who had dedicated his life to American unity and independence could
contemplate this possibility without anguish.

To communicate secretly with Shelburne was Franklin's immediate
thought but how? After the outbreak of the revolution tibtey had managed
to maintain a private correspondence until some of Franklin's letters

THE SHELBURNE WAY [ K) ]

intercepted and read by Lord North's agents. In spite of the false names
with which the doctor had been careful to sign these missives,, his identity
was suspected; and in 1780 a Tory member of Parliament, Colonel Fullar-
ton, openly accused Shelburne of corresponding "with an enemy of his
country." It was a charge difficult to evade. To protect his reputation the
Earl felt it necessary to turn to the dueling pistol. Early one morning he
and Fullarton met in Hyde Park and exchanged shots. Shelburne missed,
and he came away from the field slightly wounded in the groin, and with-
out the apology he had sought. But the ensuing uproar brought him a burst
of popular approval as a brave British gentleman, and by retiring to his
country estate he was able to avoid further attacks on his loyalty. Now, as
he re-emerged into the public view, he would have to be especially cautious.
Although diplomatic couriers and underground agents moved without much
difficulty back and forth between the enemy countries, Franklin could not
risk putting a letter to the Earl into, uncertain hands.

Winter, that year, was uncommonly harsh in Paris, and the aging phi-
losopher stayed close to his warm house in Passy, on the outskirts of Paris.
His thoughts turned often to the south, where several of his friends were
seeking the sun, and especially he missed his favorite young Frenchwoman,
Mme. Brillon a charming and intelligent lady, his neighbor in Passy, who
knew how to make him feel that his seventy-six years were a mere error in
arithmetic. In the middle of March, he was delighted to receive a letter from
her, full of solicitude and affection. Among other matters, she wrote that
an amiable Englishman, Lord Cholmondeley, had been in Nice and was
on his way to Paris, where he hoped to call on Dr. Franklin.

While private gentlemen traveling for their pleasure through enemy
countries under diplomatic protection were then taken for granted, it had
been a long time since Franklin received a visit from a British nobleman,
and he awaited this one with curiosity. A week later Cholmondeley arrived
at his house. Franklin later wrote of their talk in his Journal of Negotiations
for Peace with Great Britain: "Great affairs sometimes take their rise from
small circumstances ... He [Cholmondeley] told me that he knew Lord
Shelburne had a great regard for me, that he was sure his lordship would be
pleased to hear from me, and that if I should write a line, he would have a
pleasure in carrying it" The doctor did not waste time in wondering about
the coincidence, if it was a coincidence, that brought the man to him at so
appropriate a moment. The main thing was that a letter in Cholmondeley's
hands would be safe. Taking papa: and quill, he composed a careful note
to Shelburne: "I embrace the opportunity of assuring you of my ancient
respect . . . and of congratulating you on the returning good disposition
of your country in favour of America . , I hope it wiH toad to
a general peace to which I sjhafl with infinite pleasure coatribtfte .

[ 20 ] THE PEACEMAKERS 1782-1783

in my power." The doctor underlined the words "a general peace! 9 It would
do no harm to remind Shelburne that America stood staunchly by the
alliance with Fiance, and would make no peace without her.

Franklin had not yet heard, when he wrote this letter, that the North
government had fallen. A new ministry had been formed, headed by the
Marquis of Rockingham, and with Shelburne as one of its major figures,

3. "A Prodigious Deal of Ambiguity"

William Petty-Fitzmaurice, Lord Shelburne, was then forty-five years old,
somewhat stout, a little gouty, but at the peak of his powers. Cholmondeley's
arrival in London was providentially timed to fit his political needs. His
position was exceedingly delicate. A few days earlier King George had
offered to make him the head of the new government, instead of Rocking-
ham, and he had felt compelled to refuse, on the ground that he lacked
the required Parliamentary support. He was not a popular man, and he knew
it But the fact that the King had turned to him was proof of his unique place
in the politics of the period. All London knew that George distrusted Shel-
burne, and had dubbed him "the Jesuit of Berkeley Square" a reference
to the EarFs notorious predilection for the sub ro$a stratagem and the art-
ful dodge. Not only had Shelburne opposed the North government at every
turn, but at one time he had even been accused of a plot to assassinate
the King. Although the charge was baseless, it reflected the popular notion
of that mutual feeling.

Shelburne was aware that the King 7 s sudden friendliness did not signify
a genuine change in the royal attitude. To George, he could be no more
than a disagreeable necessity. It was not that the King hated him less, but
that he hated Rockingham more. The Marquis, an out-and-out Whig, was
determined to cut away the remaining powers of the throne, to reduce the
King to a mere figurehead. His avowed advocacy of American independence
challenged the royal policy at its root. The only good thing about Rocking-
ham, in George's view, was his failing healthdue it was gossiped, to his
too great passion for an Italian mistress. George had sworn never to speak
to Rockingham; to have him again close to the throne would be an un-
bearable humiliation.

Although the King's bursts of paranoid irrationality had been openly dis-
cussed in Parliament, he was still far from obvious insanity, and his narrow,
opinionated mind functioned shrewdly in the subtle play of politics. Unlike
Rockingham, Shelburne had never spoken outright for American independf
ence. During previous cabinet service he had advocated a species Of home
rule for the colonies, under a British viceroy, and he was still identified with,
this proposal which, if conceded earlier, might have pmeatod the Revo*
lution, George saw, or thought he saw, in Shelburne a man wb%

THE SHELBUKJNE WAY [ 21 ]

devious his ways, might spare the Crown the indignity of a virtual surrender
to America. The Earl preferred not to disabuse him of this idea. When he
declined the post of First Lord of the Treasury, which normally meant
primacy in the Cabinet, the King quickly put forward another proposal.
He would accept Rockingham in the Treasury, he said, if he did not have
to endure him in the flesh if all negotiation with him were carried on
through another Shelburne, for example.

Nothing could have suited Shelburne better, and he undertook to per-
suade Rockingham to accept the unprecedented and insulting arrangement.
The Marquis, a large-spirited man, shrugged; he would agree, he said, if the
King would "place no veto on American independence." He insisted, too,
that the post of Secretary for Foreign Affairs go to his foremost supporter,
the gifted Charles James Fox, professional politician, much-quoted wit,
gambler, philanderer, and the most brilliant orator of his day who also
stood high on the King's long list of hates. George boggled only briefly at
these stipulations; Shelburne was his hope.

It was Fox's assumption, and Buckingham's, that peace with the allies,
including America, would be negotiated by the Foreign Office. They were
uneasy when Shelburne asked to be made Secretary of State for Home,
Irish, and Colonial affairs. While they felt obliged to agree, the possibility
was obvious that he had conspired with the King to keep the American peace
in his own hands. For so long as England did not recognize the independ-
ence of the colonies, how could they be dealt with as a foreign power?

It was precisely this kind of maneuver that caused Shelburne's enemies
to say of him that "falsehood is his profession," and that tempted cartoonists
to portray him as Janus, showing two faces to the world at the same time.
Even his friend Jeremy Bentham had to admit that there was "a prodigious
deal of ambiguity about him." But Shelburne saw nothing unprincipled in
his behavior. He regarded himself as an advanced liberal, carrying the torch
of progress side by side with Franklin, Bentham, and Adam Smith. What
if he flattered the reactionary Kong and lent himself to royal intrigues? In
his view, these were no more than practical means justified by worthy ends.
Jt was his hope to remake British economic policy in Adam Smith's image
to bring it into harmony with the requirements of a world of ever increas-
ing population and productivityto go down in history as the minister who
established freedom of trade between England and other nations. He was
a modern man, in the sense that the modern man in any age has a feeling
for change, distrusts orthodoxy, and seeks to shake off the dutch of outworn
tradition.

Intellectual enthusiasms were so closely blended in him with a passion
for personal power that it was difficult 'to tel where one left off and the
other begaa. He could subotfdin&te Jifintodf to Rodfcmigtiami, associate Urn-

[ 22 ] THE PEACEMAKERS 1782-1783

self with Fox and pledge solidarity to the Cabinet, while scheming to get
the threads of the American negotiation into his own hands, in the genuine
belief that he was better fitted than anyone else to settle the terms of peace.
When Fox challenged him, saying, "I perceive that the administration is
to consist of two parts, one belonging to the King, the other to the public,"
Shelburne merely smiled. They were in open competition. As experienced
politicians, both knew the importance of the initiativethat the first to
establish contact with the Americans would have the advantage. From the
moment that the Rockingham ministry was formed, each looked for suitable
ways of communicating with Paris.

It was at this juncture that Lord Cholmondeley handed Shelburne
Franklin's letter. Instantly he brought it to Rockingham. Here, tangibly,
was proof of Franklin's regard, and a way to open informal and personal
talks with the American without appearing to be overly anxious. If Rocking-
ham would agree to let him send a private emissary to Franklin, he would
keep him apprised of every development To this the Prime Minister could
not reasonably demur, nor could Fox, when he heard of the matter,

4. The Urge to Peace

For many years, Shelburne had known a Scottish merchant, Richard
Oswald, who had made a fortune as an army contractor (and some say in the
slave trade) before retiring to become an ardent humanitarian. Having lived
in America, and thrived there, Oswald was regarded as something of an
authority on transatlantic affairs, and had sometimes been consulted by the
Colonial Office. His selection for the Paris assignment struck Fox as bizarre,
for the man was untrained in the art of diplomatic bargaining; how could
he stand up to an old hand like Franklin? Shelburne disposed of the objec-
tion at a cabinet meeting: "Some people . . , have been pleased to circulate
an opinion that Dr. Franklin is a very cunning man . , . I have remarked
to Mr. Oswald, Dr. Franklin knows very well how to manage a cunning
man, but when the Doctor converses or treats with a man of candor, there
is no man more candid than himself/ " Oswald's openness, sincerity, and
personal warmth, Shdbunae asserted, were in this instance likely to be
more valuable than any amount of professional subtlety. Early in April, the
Scot went off to Paris with a personal letter from his lordship to Franklin.
The last sentence of this letter was its nub: "I wish to retain the same
simplicity and good faith which subsisted between us in transactions of less
importance," There is no reason to doubt that SbeJbiirae meant it

In their first talk, Oswald enchanted FranHin with a totally indiscreet
remark: "Peace is absolutely necessary for England . , . Our enemies may
now do what they please with us." Later, it is true^ he added that if France
''should insist on terms too humiliating" England could stffl continue the

THE SHELBURNE WAY [ 23 ]

war, "having yet great strength and many resources left." But the earlier
statement bore out Franklin's own estimate of the prevailing British state
of mind. He sensed that the middle class of manufacturers and merchants,
alarmed by the steady fall of trade, was leading the clamor in England for
an early end of the war. It was well-known that the powerful textile industry
in particular was in trouble. Prior to the Revolution, the American colonies
had been its best export market, and since then mechanical improvements
in spinning and looming had sharply increased the productive capacity of
the Midlands' mills. Greatly expanded markets for calico woven from Indian
cotton and for woolen fabrics had become business necessities. Whether
America traded as a colony or as an independent republic was a matter of
minor consequence to the textile interests so long as the traffic flowed
briskly across the Atlantic. So, too, felt England's coal, metal, and hardware
producers, whose potential output was expanding as Watt's new steam
engines came into use.

Progressive British business men were pointing out that loss of American
trade jeopardized the economy not only of England, but of her valuable
West Indian possessions. These had formerly made handsome profits by
exchanging sugar and ram for the mainland's lumber and foodstuffs. Why
let France reap the benefit of America's low prices and growing needs?
Postwar French competition in the transatlantic market was greatly feared.
The London press had reported with foreboding that French merchants
were again extending credit to American firms, and that the American alli-
ance was expected to "give France the dominion and commerce" of the
new country. The conclusion reached by many British businessmen like
Oswald was that no time must be lost in re-establishing peaceful contact
with American customers.

There were other reasons why, from England's standpoint, the war
needed to be ended promptly. Until this period, thrifty owners of property
had looked with pleasure on the climb of England's birth rate> with the
resulting glut of the labor market, and its concomitant low wages and
high profits. But as wartime unemployment and prices rose together,
the distress of the poor had begun to generate explosive emotions. The
destructive anti-Catholic riots of 1780, led by the deranged Lord George
Gordon, were rooted more in the economic agony of London's unemployed
than in religious bigotry. Practical men of wealth, whether Whig or Tory,
could not fail to see that if the war lasted much longer a hurricane of
reform would blow against them. Until this time, they had felt secure in
their control of Parliament Now England's Parliamentary pillar of wisdom,
Edmund Burke, had begun a sustained attack on the aatient system of
pensions and sinecures through which vast sums of public rnooey were
annually squandered. Moves were under way to improve the Pbor

[24] THE PEACEMAKERS 1782-1783

which attempted to prevent the actual starvation of the indigent, to broaden
education and religious instruction, and to remove the property qualification
for British voters. The slave trade, on which many a British fortune had
been founded, was under heavy attack. There were even murmurs against
the use of child labor in the factories, although this did not prevent the
practice from expanding.

British authors were evincing a dangerous iconoclasrn, borrowing doc-
trines of "natural equality" and "the rights of man" from French philoso-
phers and American revolutionaries. William Ogilvie's Essay on the Right
of Property in Land, which had just been published, challenged the entire
social structure; while a friend of Franklin's, Dr. Joseph Priestley, the
scientist, went so far in his attack on established institutions that copies of
his History of the Corruptions of Christianity were officially burned. The
passionate indignation of such kindly gentlemen over the miserable condi-
tion of British laboring families found sinister echoes in the slums of London,
Manchester, and Liverpool. England, it was true, gave the appearance of
being invincibly conservative, but who knew how far the preachments of
soft-hearted reformers could drive popular resentment if wartime troubles
were allowed to persist? Property owners of whatever political party had
reason to press for a peace that would restore prosperity and bring a halt to
incendiary working-class movements.

5. The Vision

No better time would ever come, Franklin saw, to state his tarns of peace,
for the defeated British had not yefc realized the depth of America's own
war-weariness. When it came to formulating the terms, however, he found
himself in a quandaiy. The Continental Congress had announced that be-
fore peace could be negptiated England must recognize the independence
of the United States. This was precisely what Shelburne wished to avoid,
since recognition would mean lie transfer of the talks to the authority of
tbg Foieigw Office. Having no doubt that there was everything to be gained
by keeping the impressionable Oswald as England's representative, Frank-
lin consented* filially, to advance some suggestions. But he could not proceed
very far by himself, for he was only one of the five commissioners appointed
by the Congress to serve in the event of a peace conference, Of the others,
Thomas Jefferson, of Virginia, had decided to remain in America, John
Jay, of New York, was on a mission to Madrid, John Adams, of Massa-
chusetts, was trying to arrange a loan in Holland, and Heniy Laurens, of
South Carolina, had been captured by the British at sea, and was a prisoner
in the Tower of London. Weeks were sure to elapse before Jay and Adams
arrived in Paris. All that Franklin could do meanwhile was to make it plain

THE SHELBURNE WAY [ 2J ]

to the British that the peace could not be cheaply bought, and at the same
time to help Shelburne in his contest for power.

He began by summarizing the chief points on which the Congress had
expressed positive views: a just settlement of boundaries, withdrawal of all
British troops from American territory, the right to fish in the waters off
Newfoundland. From that point, he went off on his own, urging that
England cede all of Canada and Nova Scotia. This bold demand he but-
tressed with so many facts and arguments, set down in the form of a long
memorandum, that Oswald was deeply impressed. If the border between
Canada and the United States were allowed to remain, argued Franklin, it
would be a constant invitation to strife. Would it not be better to eliminate
it, rather than to jeopardize the great commercial advantages which would
otherwise accrue to England from American friendship? In the long run,
England would profit far more from trade across the Atlantic than from
mere territorial possessions there. 'To make future peace desirable," Frank-
lin wrote, "what may give occasion for future wars should be removed/*

As a patriot and statesman he was of course intent on obtaining the tan-
gible rewards of victory for his country, but it was enduring peace above all
that illuminated the old man's heart and mind as he spoke to Oswald. And
he saw such a peace as being achieved only through courageous and inspired
action on the part of great England. The world situation had been sharply
altered by the development of a considerable new source of productive
human energy on America's Atlantic coast. It was essential to peace that
England recognize the altered balance of world power, and this she could
do only by voluntary modification of her own established patterns and ways.
If she were willing to give up territory and bases at points of potential
conflict, abate her claim to rule all the seas, including American waters, and
trade with the new republic as an equal, then there need be no bounds to
their secure friendship, mutual support, and lasting advantage. British fore-
sight and generosity at this point in history might cement the two nations
forever in alliance to the benefit of all the world.

This was Franklin's vision, and Oswald caught fire from it, and made it
his own. The need, he saw, was for imaginative and creative statesmanship
which would link the interests of the two countries and weaken phobic
prejudices in both. He asked if he could show Franklin's memorandum on
Canada to Shelburne, rather than try to retain it all in his memory. After
some hesitation, the doctor agreed, on condition tfaat the memorandum go
no farther than Shelburne, and that it be getoifced to Warn. Oswald had
scarcely gone off to Calais and a channel bpat when Fraijdia began to
regret having let tihe document oirt of his jbpQcb'oft any tans* At its veiy
end was a sentence capable of seiiow no^tiiidl^cstanding a suggesiicM^liat;,
if 'Gaooadft : wtecfe '

[ 26 ] THE PEACEMAKERS 1782-1783

for the confiscation of their estates" that is, compensate Americans who
had fought on the British side for their economic losses. This idea not only
ran counter to the temper of the Congress and the American people, but
to Franklin's own feelings. He had added the clause on an impulse, as an
additional inducement for the cession of Canada. If Shelburne were to pick
up this line of thought, the result might be embarrassing. One of the most
prominent of the Royalists (whom the British preferred to call Loyalists,
and the embittered Americans called Tories) was Franklin's illegitimate
son William a refugee in England from the wrath of patriots. In his long
political life the doctor had made his fair share of enemies, and if the mem-
orandum were ever made public, there would be some, inevitably, to accuse
him of seeking a benefit for William at the expense of his country, regard-
less of his long record of patient sacrifice for the Revolution.

6. Moment of Decision

Oswald, arriving in London, reported first to a meeting of the full
Cabinet, for Shelburnp* wanted no one to accuse him of withholding in-
formation from his colleagues. Keeping his promise to Franklin, the Scot
said nothing to the cabinet of the memorandum. In all other respects, how-
ever, he gave a complete exposition of the doctor's views, including his hope
for the cession of Canada. This Oswald urged upon the ministers with
unexpected eloquence. When Shelburne and Rockingham showed them-
selves inclined to consider the proposal seriously, Fox voiced surprise and
alarm; it was folly, he thought, to encourage the Americans to expect large
concessions at this early stage of negotiation. The ministers decided finally
to authorize Shelburne to prepare a reply to Franklin for cabinet approval.

After the meeting, Oswald called privately on Shelburne at his office and
handed over Franklin's memorandum. Shelburne read it with great care.
Might he be permitted, he asked, to keep it overnight? Reluctantly Oswald
consented, and the minister locked the paper into his personal file. Even if
Oswald had not pledged his word to Franklin for secrecy, Shelburne would
hardly have wished to share so challenging a document with Fox, who
would certainly have regarded any note from the enemy as coming under
his authority. But at the moment when Shelburne took the memorandum
from Oswald's hands, he became vulnerable, and from the situation thus
created, large historical consequences were shortly to flow.

Hearing Oswald's report, and reading the memorandum, Shelburne
sensed that a moment of great decision was upon England. The minister,
together with Franklin, belonged to a small historical group of statesmen to
whom the name "idealist," with its connotation of impracticality, does not
quite apply (for they were exceedingly capable in practical affairs, and had
few illusions about the world and man) whose eupeptic insistence on

THE SHKT.BURNE WAY [ 27 ]

looking eagerly for new solutions entitles them, for want of a better word,
to be called innovators, as distinguished from the large majority of con-
formists who generally dominate international affairs. When such men suc-
ceed, they are regarded as bold and shrewd; when they fail, as rash and
naive. Shelbume was psychologically prepared through experience, study,
and reflection, as well as by ambition, to make an original peace, one that
looked to the future rather than to the past. He was ready to take immense
political risks to persuade the conservative Briton, to whom the voluntary
giving up of any jot of national power was inconceivable, that he had no
choice that England, fairly defeated in war, would have to yield Canada,
and make other important concessions a point of view that the people,
the Parliament, and the King would understand, however reluctantly they
acceded. The Earl's thinking, like Franklin's, was centered on securing a
quick peace that would withstand the tests of time. He was not disposed to
haggle, certainly not with Franklin, in whose wisdom and fairness he had
entire faith.

Shelburne's letters and speeches suggest that for all his personal limita-
tions, for all his romantic and conspiratorial style in politics, he grasped
better than most statesmen of his age (or of ours, for that matter) the proc-
ess by which wars are generated. He perceived that at one root of war is
man's reluctance to face and adjust to reality the human tendency to shut
the eyes to unpleasant change and to cling blindly to the familiar. It was
clear to him that when the institutions of nations lag too far behind the
requirements of a changing world environment as he considered England's
trade policies to be laggingpeoples seeking to maintain the old ways must
hate and be hated by peoples seeking for change. He knew, too, that when
such situations of stress are allowed to extend themselves in time, war
becomes ever more and more likely, that mutual resentment prolonged be-
tween nations finally produces resignation to war and even impatience for
it that hate, multiplied by greed, equals calamity. Although the workings
of men's glandular and nervous systems and the conception of neurosis were
unknown to Shelburne's time, it was all too familiar with the effects on
the human mind of sustained hostility. Thanks to Franklin, the nature of
lightning had then been understood for thirty years, and it was easy to
conceive that when die-hard conservatism stands continuotisly changed in
polar opposition to hungry radicalism, the probability of a blasting tipttk is
very great. Sfaelbwne heartily shared Franklin's view that if ai*
peace were to be imadfe, its terms had to be put forfh bdldty afctd
compel acceptance wMe tlie British people were stil da^ecl bf ' djiesfisbfc
m$Sy fet>, pay afetotsf amy price to emd tite waf* ' ' ' 4 ; *

He was only one minister among several, ' however; whatever

[28] THE PEACEMAKERS 1782-1783

he made to Franklin had to be shaped to the views of men who thought
very differently from himself and from each other- Fox, Rockingham, the
King. When a few days later Oswald returned to Paris with a reply from
Shelburne, he was far from happy with what he had been told to say. "Lord
Shelburne will never give up the Loyalists"; there could be no treaty unless
America agreed to compensate them. This position Franklin found disturb-
ing and dangerous, and he refused to take it as final. As to Canada and the
prevention of future wars, Shelburne wrote, "It is to be hoped that some
more friendly method will be found/' Franklin gathered that the Earl would
go far to meet the American terms, but that he felt compelled, at this stage,
to speak for Fox as well as for himself.

7. Point Counterpoint

Neither Oswald nor Franklin realized that Fox had made his first move to
shake the American negotiation out of Shelburne's hands. It came as a shock
to them both when an imperious British diplomat named Thomas Gren-
ville appeared in Paris, hard on Oswald's heels, and announced that the
Foreign Office had delegated him to open talks for peace with both France
and America. The move was especially disturbing because no American was
likely to forget that Grenville was the son of the man who two decades
before had imposed the provocative Stamp Act on the colonies. When
he called at the house in Passy, Franklin received him, but pointed out that
they could not very well enter into serious discussion until the British Gov-
ernment formally clarified the situation. Seeing that Franklin was not to
be hurried, Grenville sought out Oswald. Here he had better luck; he con-
vinced the susceptible merchant that Shelburne had given up the struggle,
and that Fox was in control. It seemed to Oswald that under the circum-
stances he bad no right to withhold any information from his presumptive
successor; and in confiding to Grenville the story of his negotiation with
Ftenldip, he mentioned the secret memorandum on Canada. Avidly Gren-
vilfe seized on this tidbit A long letter went off to Fox, implying that Shel-
burne had violated his ministerial obligation by concealing important
documents from the cabinet. This was all that was needed to release Fox's
pent-up hostility toward Shelburne. Showing Grenville's letter to Rocking-
ham, he charged that Shelburne had been guilty of "duplicity of conduct"
intolerable in a minister of the government.

Shelburne, confronted with this accusation, expressed surprise that so
much importance should be attached to "a mere paper of notes." Rocking-
ham realized that disciplinary action against him would bring the entire
ministry toppling down; so he attempted to reconcile him with Fox, but
without success. Angered by Rockin^iam's caution, Fox then shifted his

THE SHELBURNE WAY [ 29 ]

attack. It seemed to him that Franklin's attitude was the crux of his problem.
If he could be separated from Shelbume, the issue would be decided. On
this assumption, Fox wrote to Grenville, authorizing him to offer America
the full and unconditional independence which Shelburae had withheld.
But when Grenville returned to Franklin, expecting gratitude for so much
magnanimity, he found to his disgust that the old man was in no way
softened. It was evident to Franklin that independence would presently
come, regardless of its ministerial sourceand in all other respects Shelburne
and Oswald were likely to be far more generous than Fox and Grenville.
Because he was expecting the arrival in Paris of Jay and Adams, he had a
good excuse to temporize. Grenville raged, Fox gritted his teeth, Shelbume
and Oswald waited, and the peace negotiation marked time.

Crisis came late in June, with the not unexpected death of the ailing
Lord Rockingham. Fox launched a drive to put himself or a dependable
Whig puppet at the head of the ministry, but before he could organize his
Parliamentary forces the King nominated Shelburne. A message promptly
went to the Earl if he accepted, Fox would resign from the government
a warning that his Whig followers in the Commons would be opposed to
the new administration. This was a move so fraught with danger to
Shelburne that he asked young William Pitt, then moving rapidly to
political prominence and a friend of both men, to call privately on Fox, and
urge him to remain in the Cabinet. Pitt found Fox implacable. (That night
Fox celebrated his declaration of war on the Earl by staying up all night
in a historic drinking bout with his roistering friend, the Prince of Wales,
who hated the King as much as Fox hated Shelburne.)

Gloomily Pitt reported to Shelburne that the Whig leaders were planning
a tremendous Parliamentary effort to prevent confirmation of his appoint-
ment as Prime Minister. But Shelburae was not without strong resources;
the King was for him, and behind the King, Lord North's Tories. Th
ensuing debate in the House of Commons rocked not only the nation but
the hemisphere, for the speeches were widely reprinted and closely read in
Europe and America. Fox, in a spate of bitterness lasting for hours,
accused Shelburne of denying independence to America and peace to
England; he denounced him as a hypocrite without "principles of honour,"
one of those man who "would forget fifty promises when they ware no
longer necessary to their ends." Edmund Burke, always more effective at
his desk than on his feet, supported Fox in a long oration that appalW
even bi$ friends, comparing Shelbtirne with Sulla, Catiline, Borgia, and
Macbiaveffi. To all this Shelburne replied with restraint land (pgm%, con-
fident tifea[t when the time canie tibe North, party $md his own few ftilowpis
would , fn^iiage to-scjijease o&t 9. rote of confidence icp

[ 3 ] THE PEACEMAKERS 17821783

attacked by Reynard, would be saved by Boreas," predicted the knowing
wits. So the event proved. When the Commons adjourned, complete
authority to conduct the peace negotiation was his. But for how long, none
could predict.

CHAPTER TWO

Anxieties of a Patriot

i. Escape to France

No one could have been more relieved than John Jay to hear of the change
in the British Government relieved not only for his country's sake, but for
his own and his wife's. Madrid had proved the most inhospitable of capitals.
It was Jay's unfortunate assignment to apply to the Spanish court for a loan
to his necessitous government, and he had found himself facing a wall of
cold indifference. Although Spain was allied with France against England,
she felt no obligation whatever toward America. Disdain was the core of
her attitude toward the brash colonials who had dared to rebel against their
royal master. The danger of the example which they had set for the peoples
of South America was all too plain; and the Spanish foreign minister, Count
Floridablanca, had declined to receive Jay officially as the envoy of an
independent power. Unofficially, he barely condescended to exchange a
word. Even the minimal diplomatic courtesies were withheld. The Jays
were never invited to his receptions; his spies watched their movements
and read their mail. When a letter of credit which had been sent to Jay
failed to arrive on time, and he ran short of funds, he was compelled to ask
Floridablanca for some minor assistance, and even this was refused. His
house was chilly, Sarah Jay was ill, the children were unhappy, and his
mission was a failure. To all this was added a further humiliation when
the floundering Congress instructed him to tell Floridablanca that in ex-
change for a loan and a treaty of alliance it would give up its claim to free
navigation of the Mississippi River. Although at this time Spain had clear
title to the west bank of the river, as part of Louisiana, transferred to her
by France some years earlier, ownership of lands to the east was in dispute
among Americans, British, Spaniards, and Indians, so that the offer of the
Congress represented a major concession. Jay profoundly disliked his role
in this weak tactic. Carrying the message to the Count, he prepared him-
self to be contemptuously rebuffed, and he was. How, Floridablanca de-
manded, could the Congress give away a right which it did not possess?
It was a letter from Benjamin Franklin, received in May, that told Jay
of England's sadden inclination toward peace, and urged Mm to come to
Paris for the anticipated parleys. He did riot |iave
preparations for d^jpartmre. Whm Uncalled! at ttie Fora^'i

[ 32 ] THE PEACEMAKERS 1782-1783

formal leave-taking he was surprised to be greeted almost amiably by Flori-
dablanca. For this change in tone, he realized, the news from England,
greatly enhancing America's position as a speculative risk, was responsible.
Spain, conveyed the Count, politely if vaguely, would continue to support
the common effort against the British,, and even a future loan was not
impossible. Details, he said, would be worked out by the Spanish ambas-
sador in Paris, Count d'Aranda.

The long trip northward by jolting carriage, by boat across the stormy
Bay of Biscay, by carriage again from Bordeaux to Paris, was one long dis-
comfort, but the Jays were in high spirits. His wife's pleasure in this, her first
trip to France, was especially satisfying to Jay. Everything she saw delighted
her, and he reveled in her running commentary. She was an attractive
woman, with delicate features and a fine complexion; more than this, she
had a quick mind and a lively wit; more even than this, she was a Livingston,
born to large wealth and influence. Uncomprehending Spaniards, observing
his devotion to her, had set him down as an absurdly uxorious man. One
diplomat wrote of the Jays, "This woman, whom he blindly loves, dom-
inates him" an exaggeration; he was sufficiently endowed by inheritance,
education, and talent to stand on his own feet. It had not been his marriage
alone that had made him, in his thirties, a successful lawyer, President of
the Continental Congress, and Chief Justice of New York, before being sent
abroad. Cool and careful calculation was one of his strengths; he was one
of the few important Revolutionary figures who was not yet ready, at the
time of the Declaration of Independence, to break with the British and
throw in his lot with Washington.

They arrived in Paris on June 23, and after he had deposited Sarah and
the children at an apartment which Franklin had reserved for them, Jay
drove eagerly to the doctor's house in Passy.

2. Franklin Explains

The briefing that Franklin gave Jay took up most of three days, and in
addition to a detailed account of his talks with Oswald and Grenville
included a review of France's precarious financial position. Franklin realized,
as few Americans then did, that in spite of imminent victory in the war,
the French Government was far from sanguine about the future. Under
the weight of a vast military budget and loans to the American revolution-
ists, the economy of the nation was visibly crumbling. The tragedy of the
situation was that although the French nobility and bourgeoisie held half
the cash in Europe, they paid so small a share of the nation's taxes that
the government had to rely primarily on precarious monies squeezed some-
how from flattened peasantry and petty tradesmen.

ANXIETIES OF A PATRIOT [ 33 ]

Long before 1782, a former minister of finance, Turgot, had warned Louis
XVI that the first shot of a French cannon in the American war would
bankrupt the government. This prediction had been amply fulfilled. King
Louis was confronted with debts which remained obdurately enormous in
spite of the most frenzied efforts of his finance ministers. Except for pros-
pering manufacturers and merchants, the economic condition of the people
was steadily deteriorating. With the rapidly growing population approaching
twenty-five millions, three times that of England, the distribution of goods
was so lopsided that in most parts of the country typical living standards
barely permitted survival.

As new factories, mills, and blast furnaces were erected, great numbers
of ill-paid or unemployed laborers had concentrated in Paris; and to see a
Paris of nearly -700,000 people, most of them living in harsh poverty,
caused alarm even in the Cloud-Cuckoo-Land of Versailles. It was primarily
in response to the dangerous mood of the capital that in 1782 a royal order
was issued, stating that to prevent a shortage of wood for fuel, "the King
forbids the erection of any new factories within a radius of fifteen leagues
around the capital/' Whatever the danger of a fuel shortage, the danger of
the mob was greater.

Even more than solvency, Louis and his court Craved the goodwill of the
people. The popular cause of the age in France was American independence.
It was his illusion that by supporting republicans abroad he could strengthen
the monarchy at home that the cheers of crowds augured security. Espe-
cially he wished to be admired and applauded by the enlightened writers
and philosophers who then set the tone of French opinion. "We glory,"
he said, for their benefit, "that the France we govern is high-spirited and
free."

To prove his support of freedom, he had encouraged his Foreign Minister,
the Count de Vergennes, to plunge into open war against England in
America's support. Once committed, there could be no withdrawal. Deep
and deeper into the financial vortex he was sucked, until there was no
money even to pay his household staff, until the word "tax" had become
an epithet throughout France.

Vergennes and the King were eager to see an end to a struggle which
France had entered in the hope of crushing an overextended British empire,
only to become overextended herself. For one thing, her foreign trade had
been seriously hurt by roving British naval squadrons. For another,
gennes, in order to persuade Spain to enter the war against England
made a troublesome promise to Floridabl^iica. Not only IJritish lancfe east
of Lauisiaiia, on the Gulf of Merico, had 'been assumed to Sj^aia, iaot catitf
the tepplslci of Britisl ooloiifets from Honduras, but moist important*

[ 34 1 THE PEACEMAKERS 1782-1783

France had agreed to go on fighting until Gibraltar was once more in
Spanish hands. In the face of a long and costly siege by the French, the
coveted citadel had proved irreducible. Now the tough-minded Florida-
blanca was bluntly demanding that Vergennes find a satisfactory alternative
to recompense Spain for her efforts against the British.

It was all very well to announce to the world that the French motive
in fighting England was an idealistic desire to assure American independ-
ence. Many European liberals, as well as Americans, were comforted by the
notion. But the rights of man and the sacred liberty of peoples did not
concern Vergennes very much. He was a man who had become gray in
diplomacy, and who had seen too much of life and politics to kindle over
a new slogan. The war for him had never been more than another round
in the ancient dynastic struggle between France and England. In this, his
larger hopes had been thwarted at every turn. A plan to invade England
across the Channel came to nothing. A British fleet under Admiral George
Rodney smashed France's finest squadrons in the West Indies. A notion of
bringing Prussia, Austria, and Russia into alliance against England evap-
orated when these nations decided instead to seize the opportunity to par-
tition helpless Poland. Vergennes conceived and secretly supported the
"League of the Armed Neutrality," a Baltic coalition of neutral states led
by Russia, and supposed to menace England; but it shriveled until Cath-
erine II disdainfully referred to it as the "League of Armed Nullity." The
Dutch, not the French, benefited most from the Caribbean trade which
England lost during the war. Acting on the principle that political isolation
is fatal to a belligerent power, Vergennes had attempted to isolate England,
but he had not sufficiently reckoned on the high cost of his own foreign
alliances. The defeat of the British in the American colonies was in his eyes
only meager consolation.

To make matters worse, Franklin was urging his consent to yet another
inadvisable loan to the Americans. Robert Livingston had gloomily written
to the doctor, "It is my duty to confide to you that if the war is to be con-
tinued in this country, it must be to a great extent at the expense of France."
Congress, Franklin was informed, had been able to collect from the states
not even one tenth of the five million dollars estimated to be required for
the expenditures of the next fiscal year. Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and
Virginia had rejected the request of the Congress for a federal tax on im-
ports. In the face of this bleak news Franklin had to push again and again
at Vergennes. He did not conceal from Jay that he sympathized with the
French minister and admired the courage and skill with which he juggled
the enormous burdens of his office. At the first opportunity, he drove his
fellow commissioner to Versailles to pay formal respects to Vergennes,

ANXIETIES OF A PATRIOT [ 35 ]

3. No One Could Be Trusted

There was an epidemic of inlaienza in Paris at the time, and Jay, fatigued
by his long journey from ^pain and hours of concentrated talk, began to
run a fever. It took a strong constitution, in those days of punishing travel,
to represent one's country abroad which perhaps explains why so many of
the noted statesmen of the period were exceptionally long-lived. Jay's malaise
first showed itself in a sudden lowering of his spirits. He was seized by a dis-
like of French society, not for its social iniquities or political follies, but for
its carefree indulgence of the senses, its open concentration on amorous
conquest, its ceaseless preoccupation with fashion, its dilettantism, its love
of flippant wit. A fundamentalist in religion, taking his Bible literally, he
was repelled by everything that Paris stood for. His was a serious world,
and he could not forget that he spoke for a new nation at a turning point
of history. He appears to have suffered from the obscure and uncomfortable
sense of being excluded, which a man of action is likely to experience in a
foreign country whose language he speaks only haltingly and crudely. Out
of a strain of prudishness that was in him came the conclusion that the
French "were not a moral people and did not know what it was." Franklin's
easy acceptance of French ways and French ideas he found incomprehen-
sible and even a little shameful. He was depressed, too, for he was a fas-
tidious man, by the casual attitude of the citizens of Paris, especially in
the unscented classes, toward the disposal of garbage and ordure, and the
washing of linen. The smells, filth, and squalor of the purlieus of Paris at
that time startled even those who knew the slums of London, and were a
factor,, it has been suggested, in the almost total withdrawal of aristocrats
from any physical contact with the poor, and the bitter resentment of the
French poor toward nose-wrinkling aristocrats.

Jay's anxieties quickly found a focus Vergennes. His considerable ego
had been abraded at their meeting by the cool courtesy which the minister
had shown him, while making much of Franklin. Had the doctor been
beguiled by the Frenchman? This was, Jay knew, the opinion formed by
John Adams, when he had been in Paris a few years earlier. Vergennes's
ivory smoothness and urbanity conveyed that all things diplomatic were
somehow under his control. His was one of those subtle and skeptical and
at the same time deeply Catholic minds, which so often used to appear in
the French ruling classes, a mind conditioned by Europe's long and bitter
experience of the human predicament; and the Protestant Jay, who for aU
his legal training and accomplishment was in many ways an ^sophisti-
cated man, was repelled and intimidated by it To tiust such a maity as
FraaHiE ckady trusted Itfxm, could, fe feti; only be prefudicM to America^
interests. - > . , , : >

[ 36 ] THE PEACEMAKERS 1782-1783

The orders which the Continental Congress had sent to its commissioners
now took on a sinister connotation for him. "You are . . . to undertake
nothing without their [the French government's] knowledge and concur-
rence, and ultimately to govern yourself by their advice and opinion/' Was
such a policy compatible with the honor of a sovereign nation? Had the
Congress been corrupted by Vergennes's agents in Philadelphia? It seemed
to Jay that in this instruction the American birthright had been sold for a
mess of French promises.

He had the feeling that conspiracy and espionage were all around him.
Franklin was so used to surveillance by French and British agents that even
when he suspected some of his servants he did not discharge them; he pre-
ferred spies he knew and liked to those who might replace them. Jay was less
philosophical, almost obsessed by suspicion, epecially of the French. Much
as he revered Franklin, he feared the consequences of letting the old man,
with his Francophile leanings,, negotiate alone for peace and the American
future. Hurriedly Jay wrote to John Adams, saying that he was much
needed in Paris, but Adams was then in the thick pf arrangements for the
Dutch loan, and could not leave Amsterdam. When Jay's fever grew worse
and chills and coughing forced him to bed, the world looked black to him.

4. "Mr. Jay Is a Lawyef*

Several weeks of a hot summer went by before Jay was well enough to
receive visitors, but then Franklin brought reassuring news. Lord Shelburne
had become Prime Minister, with the fast-rising Pitt as his Chancellor of
the Exchequer. Oswald was once more in Paris, empowered to resume
negotiations. The French had approved an arrangement under which
America would negotiate separately with the British, on the understanding
that Vergennes would be kept fully informed of progress, and that no terms
would be concluded without his assent. Franklin had put Oswald off until
Jay would be well enough to participate in the talks. With fears somewhat
abated, and strength returning, Jay suggested that Oswald call on him so
that they could become acquainted without further delay.

A few days laterit was then early August- Oswald appeared at Jay's
house, and formally presented his credentials. As Jay took the paper in his
hands and read it, anger boiled up in him. No mention was made of the
United States of America. Shelburne had empowered Oswald only to deal
with the commissioners representing "the Colonys." The words were like
a slap in the face. With the cold precision for which he was known when
he sat on the judge's bench, Jay said that he could not admit Oswald's
powers so long as they failed to designate the independent United
States of America by their correct title. When Oswald remarked that Dr.
Franklin had not raised any such objection, Jay retorted caustically that

ANXIETIES OF A PATRIOT E 37 ]

Mr. Adams, with whom he had corresponded, agreed that prior recognition
of American independence was indispensable to the peace negotiation, as
the Congress had long since stipulated. Unless independence were promptly
and unconditionally granted, America, Jay strongly hinted, would pursue
the war against England with full vigor, and with the support of her allies.
Taken aback by this blunt challenge, Oswald went directly to Franklin,
only to find that while the doctor's welcome was friendly, he was disposed
to agree with Jay. If he had not previously seen fit to challenge Oswald's
powers, Franklin said, it was perhaps because he had not fully grasped the
significance of the point. "Mr. Jay is a lawyer, and might think of things
that do not occur to those who are not lawyers." Now that Lord Shelburne
was head of the British Government, what justification could there be for
further postponement of recognition? In the face of this united front, Os-
wald could see nothing to do but return to London, report to Shelburne
the hardened mood of the American negotiators, and ask for revised powers.

CHAPTER THREE

Tlie Raymeval Affair

i, Whose Land?

Jay and his wife were pleased at his having made himself so strongly felt
by the British. As soon as he was able to leave his house, he sought further
action. It seemed to him that the time had come "to demand that Spain
clarify her attitude toward America's future, and in a determined frame of
mind, he called on Count d' Aranda, to whom Franklin had provided an
introduction.

He found that the Spanish loan was still a mirage; Aranda had received
no authorization from Floridablanca to arrange it. But in the course of their
talk, the ambassador brought out a map of America which Jay found in-
tensely interesting, if alarming. It showed the thirteen states confined to
the Atlantic coast, with Canada British, and virtually everything south of
the Great Lakes and west of the Alleghenies, Spanish. Swallowing his wrath,
Jay remarked that the map overlooked American rights in much of this
territory. Aranda reminded him of his conversation with Floridablanca in
Madrid, when America had offered to give up her alleged navigation rights
on the Mississippi. At Jay's denial that his country's claim to extend west
of the Alleghenies had in any way been prejudiced, the Spaniard merely
shrugged. Presently Jay caught an implication that France had approved the
settlement indicated on the map, and that the vast territories east of the
Mississippi were to be Spam's compensation in lieu of Gibraltar. At this
he realized that he was out of his depth; he took himself off and drove
hastily to Franklin's house.

Franklin no more than Jay liked the sound of Aranda's statements. The
best thing, he thought, would be to discuss the matter frankly with Ver-
gennes, and he arranged an appointment. Early on the morning of August
10, they visited the Foreign Ministry at Versailles, where they were
Courteously received by Vergennes and his chief assistant, G6rard de Ray-
neval, a quiet, thoughtful, unsmiling man of middle age. Jay spoke of
Aranda's map and strongly presented the American position, much as he
might have presented it in a court of law. He had a fairly good case, espe-
cially as it applied to America's interest in the great triangle of forests and
prairie bounded by the Ohio River, the Great Lakes, and the Mississippi,
George Rogers Clark had shortly before led a small body of troops through
the heart of this country. On the strength of his achievement, Congress had

THE RAYNEVAJL AFFAIR [ 39 ]

announced that "if a right to said territory depended on the conquests of
the British posts within it, the United States have already more extensive
claim than Spain can acquire, having by the success of their arms obtained
possession of all the important posts and settlements on the Illinois and
Wabash." This was an exaggeration, as was also an estimate that twenty
thousand American settlers were already in the Ohio valley, but there was
a core of fact in the argument

Rayneval answered for France. He was a specialist in American affairs
and his brother, Conrad Gerard, was then minister to the Continental Con-
gress. Precise logic, in the rigid French tradition, was at once his forte and
his weakness; he had a passion for clarity and finality. If the American claim
was based on mere physical possession of the region, then it was empty, he
held, for the actual owners of most of the land were Indians, who greatly
outnumbered the white settlers. This being so, the disposition of the Indian
tribes must be given decisive weight. He was then preparing a long report,
showing in unanswerable detail, tribe by tribe, that the Indians of the lands
north of the Ohio accepted the suzerainty of the British crown. Thisi region
had long been claimed by England without contest; it was rightfully hers,
and if, as a penalty of defeat in war, she felt constrained to cede it to Spain,
then it would legally become Spanish territory.

Technically, it was an argument difficult to rebut. The heart of Jay's posi-
tion was simply the knowledge that America had whipped England, and
was not going to let any other nation Walk off with the spoils. The western
lands were an indispensable part of the American dream of future greatness.
But Jay could hardly say this to the French, whose military aid had made
the American victory possible, who were America's financial patrons and
seniors in diplomacy. He was further exasperated when Vergennes, turning
to Franklin, advised the American commissioners to moderate their
demands on Englandnot to insist on recognition of independence prior
to the peace negotiation not to demand Canada, or fishing rights off New-
foundland. By asking too much for herself, America might prejudice tie
just claims of France and Spain, which were as important to them as
America's aspirations were to her.

Franklin, as usual with him when he was hard pressed, preserved an enig-
matic silence, and both sides maintained the forms of courtesy. As soon as
the Americans were in their carriage, Jay's choler exploded, Vergennes, he
felt, was about to betray America, and it struck him as strange that Franklin
was not as exercised as himself. Franklin tried to soothe him. Vergjennes
was after all a Frenchman, and thought of France's interests first, as was Ms
duty. So far as Franklin knew, he had never broken his word once it had
J>een given. Patience and persistence were the qipHties likely to be most
productive for America. There was mo dqnl^ FraakliE said, that f V should

[40] THE PEACEMAKERS 1782-1783

insist on the Mississippi as our western boundary/' But he had also to con-
sider his status as a friend of France, for he was still pressing Vergennes for
the needed loan. In view of their instructions from the Congress, he did not
see that there was any action to be profitably taken at the moment. It was
his belief that Shelburne and Oswald were sincere in their avowed intention
to make a peace which would wipe away America's hard feelings toward
England, and that they would not consent to give the western lands to
Spain. All this seemed to Jay to be mere evasion, mere pusillanimity in
the face of a major challenge. Both men felt a strain in their relationship
when they separated.

2. Oswald Is Pleasantly Surprised

A few days later a sudden gallstone attack, the first of the many which
were to plague Franklin for the rest of his life, confined him to his home,
in a state of great pain. Jay, brooding alone over the problem of the Mis-
sissippi, concluded that if Vergennes maintained his stand, if America's
hopes for the west depended solely on the British, a different attitude to-
wards England was indicated. At the beginning of September, Oswald
returned from London, and was startled to be greeted by a Jay amiable
and conciliatory. The merchant, who was rapidly learning the rules of the
diplomatic game, quickly revised his own tactics, which had been prepared
for a very different situation. Lord Shelburne had been shaken by his
account of Jay's earlier toughness. The Prime Minister's political career de-
pended on success in arriving at a quick peace; precariously placed as he
was he could not take the risks of protracted bargaining. As a result, Os-
wald had been authorized to make extraordinary concessions. Fishing rights
would be granted; troops would be promptly withdrawn; the question of
Canada would be left open for negotiation; even the issues of the Loyalists
and of pre-Revolutionary debts might be dropped, if the Americans insisted.
Oswald carried a secret letter from the Foreign Office, to be used at his
discretion: **His Majesty is pleased, for the salutary purpose of precluding
all further delay ... to waive every stipulation by the treaty for the un-
doubted rights of the merchants whose debts accrued before 1775 and also
for the claims of the [Loyalist] refugees for the compensation for their
losses."

In effect, Shelburne was prepared to give America almost everything that
Franklin had asked for in his first tentative outline of terms. But when
Oswald found Jay suddenly malleable he adopted a tone of statesmanlike
reserve, such as he had never used with Franklin. His only encouragement
for Jay was the news that Parliament would soon be asked to pass an
Enabling Act, empowering him to treat with America as an independent
nation. Meanwhile, should they not proceed to work on a preHminary

THE RAYNEVAL AFFAIR [ 41 ]

draft of the treaty, without further delay? Overlooking his earlier insistence
on recognition prior to negotiation, Jay readily acquiesced.

As the new talks with Oswald were about to get under way, a messenger
brought Jay a letter which, he was surprised to find, had been written by
Rayneval, in his own hand. Courteous but urgent in tone, the note expressed
RaynevaFs hope that Jay would on reflection see the wisdom of the view
which had been discussed at their last meeting, as to the advisability of
limiting the territorial aspirations of the American government. A postscript
added that he expected to be absent from Paris for some days.

Instantly Jay suspected a French scheme to settle the cession of the west-
ern territory behind America's back. In a letter to Livingston he wrote,
"The perusal of this memoir convinced me that this court [France] would
. . . oppose our extension to the Mississippi." As for Rayneval's mysterious
absence from Pariswhere would he have gone but to London? The next
morning he made inquiries at Versailles, and learned that Rayneval, after
having met with Aranda for a long talk, had left Paris secretly and mysteri-
ously. This to Jay's mind was conclusive, and he rushed to Franklin's house
to report that the French plot against America had reached the point of
crisis.

3. A Matter of Conscience

There was only one way, Jay insisted, to counter the French move to
open secret negotiations with Shelburne, immediately, for a separate peace
in which France would not be consulted. Franklin, who was feeling barely
well enough to talk, shook his head and mustered arguments. The proposal
threatened the French alliance which had made possible the success of
the Revolution. Their instructions from the Congress ruled out a separate
peace. As soon as America showed distrust of her ally, much of her bar-
gaining advantage would be lost. On the evidence at hand, there could be
no moral justification for breaking their pledge to maintain close liaison
with the French during the peace talks. Was it not possible that Jay had
misread the purpose of Rayneval's mission to England, if in fact he had
really gone there?

While raising objections and questions, Franklin did not flatly reject Ja/s
idea. He was too shrewd and experienced not to allow for the possibility
that Jay's interpretation of the situation might be right. But it was not cau-
tion alone that made him decide to avoid a commitment. Enfeebled by
pain, he was profoundly aware of his age and the ebbing of his physical
powers. It was on Jay and Adams that tbe heaviest burden of responsibility
for the peace would fall in the future. If the younger mem ovemijed his
judgment in dealing with England, that was no reason tq let: tie offty of

[42] THE PEACEMAKERS 1782-1783

the American commission be weakened; and so he limited himself to point-
ing out the dangers of Jay's stand.

A formidable question of conscience now confronted Jay. Obedience to
the orders of the Congress might undermine the future of his country, as
he saw it; but how would defiance of these orders be regarded? More than
political judgment was involved here. He was an ambitious man, and the
temptation to demonstrate his personal force was strong in him. Many of
his contemporaries observed that for a man so able and so successful his
need for surface recognition was singularly intense. He enjoyed flattery
(and it did not have to be very subtle) as other men enjoyed wine, and
with the same heady effect "Mr. Jay's weakness," a British agent reported
to his government a few years later, "is Mr. Jay." At this moment, he was
more than a little frustrated, for contact with European diplomats had
brought home to him the fact that he was regarded as distinctly secondary
to Franklin.

Like George Washington on the other side of the Atlantic, Franklin's
fame made his compatriots in Europe seem unimportant by comparison,
even an Adams, even a Jay. The shadow of a truly great man always falls
very dark on ambitious heads near him. Jay had been a little taken aback
to discover the almost worshipful affection and respect with which the doc-
tor was regarded by Europeans of all classes, from dukes to stable boys.
An epigram about him written by Turgot (in Latin) summed up the general
feeKng: "He snatched the lightning from the sky and the scepter from ty-
rants," And women young and beautiful women simply adored him, as
if they saw in him the vital force, the humor, and the kindness they wished
their husbands had, Fond of Franklin as he was, Jay could not fathom the
secret of his ageless charm, but he knew that Sara Jay felt it, and even
the children loved to visit the doctor's house. While Jay's expressed feelings
about Franklin never descended to the level of open envy and petty resent-
ment revealed by Adams, the desire to dominate in this situation, to prove
his independence of the old man, was very strong.

There was at that time in Paris an Englishman named Benjamin Vaughan,
an old friend of Franklin, and the publisher of many of his books and
pamphlets. This did not, however, prevent him from being at the same time
an agent of Shelburne, reporting regularly his conversations with the
American envoys. Both sides were apparently aware of his divided alle-
giance, but used him as a go-between without serious qualms. Vaughan had
sensed and communicated to London Jay's doubts of Vergennes, doubts
which it was obviously in England's interest to encourage. The veiy day
after Jay learned of RaynevaFs departure for London, the British managed
to put into his hands a letter which galvanized him into action. Written to
Vergennes by Barb&Marbois, a young French diplomat in Philadelphia,

THE RAYNEVAL AFFAIR

the letter suggested a means by which differences between the southern
states and New England might be used to block America's claim to share
in the Newfoundland fisheries. How the British had managed to intercept
this dispatch Jay did not learn, but he read it with a sense of outrage, as
tangible proof of all that he had suspected of Vergennes. Again he drove to
Franklin's house and again the calm response frustrated him. The docu-
ment, Franklin suggested, came too apropos; might it not be a British for-
gery? In any event, it was not written by Vergennes, but to him, and so
could hardly be taken as representing French policy.

Barely controlling his temper, and with no further consultation with
Franklin, Jay sought out Vaughan and asked him to go to London with
a private communication for Lord Shelburne. He went so far as to express
the hope or at least Vaughan so related to Shelburne "that your Lord-
ship, as a wise man, would take the moment to associate to yourself those
that had quitted you and were inclined to return to you." Specifically,
Vaughan was to ask the Prime Minister to authorize Oswald to treat secretly
with the Americans in working out a separate peace, without reference to
France.

4. The Gamblers and the Stakes

It was perfectly plain to Lord Shelburne that RaynevaFs mission to Lon-
don had been timed to catch British morale at its lowest. For some months
agents in France had reported that French shipyards were turning out war-
ships carrying unprecedented defensive armor heavy thicknesses of wood
and iron, such as would enable an attacking cruiser to move in close to a
fortress for a crushing bombardment and what fortress but Gibraltar could
justify such an effort? Then in late August came word that squadrons of
the French fleet had gathered off Bordeaux and sailed south for what pur-
pose, if not to join the ships of Spain for a supreme assault on the Rock?
For months the British Navy had been unable to land supplies for the hard-
pressed Gibraltar garrison, and the possibility of its surrender had been
seriously discussed in a cabinet meeting. It was in an atmosphere of gloom
engendered by this expectation that Rayneval appeared to outline the French
terms for peace.

Shelburne received him courteously, while finding excuses for putting off
serious talk. His chief if tenuous hope of advantage lay in reports from
Vaughan that Jay seemed to have turned against Vergennes, and he wanted
to give this development a chance to mature. First, M. Rayneval, even
though his visit was unofficial and secret, must attend court, and make his
bow to His Majesty. (The serious Frenchman had brought no court clothes
with him, and went through the ceremony wearing a plain black suifH-a
lapse which caused the King to take an instant dislike to him. ) Another day,

[44] T PEACEMAKERS 1782-1783

another excuse but finally Shelburne had to sit down with Rayneval in a
private conference.

Contrary to Jay's expectation, Rayneval had little to say about America.
He sketched a large scheme for world peace, involving British concessions
to France in India, in Ceylon, in the West Indies, in the Grand Banks
fisheries. The Prime Minister remained attentive but non-committal. As
to Spain's demands, Rayneval spoke of the withdrawal of the English from
Central America, and the surrender of Florida; he merely threw out the
possibility that the British might keep Gibraltar in exchange for territory
west of the Alleghenies. When Shelburne showed no interest in the sug-
gestion, Rayneval quickly veered off to other subjects. He was disappointed
by the Earl's refusal to follow the logic of his peace terms; that night, in
a letter to Vergennes, he wrote that "sentiment, more than reason, influ-
ences his [Shelburne's] mind."

The Prime Minister was, however, far from sentimental in the matter.
Franklin had convinced him that England's best chance for a quick peace
and a healthy future relationship with America lay in a bold break with
the past, in a policy of forthrightness and generosity. It was in this spirit
that he had prepared to meet Franklin's demands. In doing so he knew that
he would invite raging criticism from enemies in Parliament, but he believed
he could counter their onslaught with the argument of necessity. While
France and America stood firmly together, while the British military posi-
tion deteriorated, what was England to do? The price for immediate peace
was high but delay might drive it higher still.

This was his position on September 12, 1782, after his second meeting
with Rayneval. It changed the next day, when the elated Benjamin
Vaughan came to him with John Jay's message. For Shelburne, the impli-
cations of the overture were tremendous. If a wedge could be driven between
America and France, the tarns of peace would be far less onerous for Eng-
land. If Jay and Adams were to lead the American side of the negotiation,
then he would be justified in reconsidering the conception of the peace on
which he had agreed with Franklin. The King might be appeased, the Whig
opposition mollified.

Shelburne was too experienced not to look twice at Jay's gambit, and he
questioned Vaughan closely. Could the demarche be a subtle trap on the
part of Vergennes? Could Jay be relied on to stand firm against French
pressure? Would Adams and Franklin support him? Might the French,
angered by the American default, insist on continuing the war? On full
consideration, the chance was too good to be missed, and he wrote to Os-
wald to begin secret negotiations with Jay. But he added soberly, "Tfcere
never was greater risk run. I hope the public will be the gairjer, else pur
heads must answer for it, and deservedly." Parliament, at his request, em-

THE RATOEVAL AFFAIR [45]

powered Oswald "to treat with the Commissioners appointed by the
Colonys under the title of the Thirteen United States" a wording suffi-
ciently ambiguous to pacify King George on the one hand and to satisfy
John Jay on the other.

Rayneval, knowing nothing of the American action, was still seeking by
patient logic to persuade British officials to his scheme of peace, when all
at once the ground of his mission was cut out from under him by sensational
news from Gibraltar. The famous red-hot cannon balls used by the British
gunners on September 13 had set fire to the finest ships of the French fleet
and driven them off in distress. Hope of supplying the beleaguered garrison
soared again, and as England went wild over the victory, Rayneval threw
up his hands and returned to France.

He found Vergennes profoundly depressed by the failure at Gibraltar,
the nagging of Floridablanca, and the unexpected firmness of Shelburne.
The aging minister was staking his career on a peace which would not
injure his country's cmour-propre. In spite of the disasters which had over-
taken the French fleet, in spite of financial crisis, the people still regarded
themselves as victorious, and expected a treaty that would support this con-
viction. The perils of further war for the monarchy were little understood.
Vergennes had long since learned that it is far easier to persuade a nation
to the sacrifices of war than to the compromises of peace. At court, he was
often urged to continue fighting in order to shatter the British empire
beyond repair. A highly vocal party of war-to-the-end aristocrats, led by the
young Marquis de Lafayette, was especially troublesome. 'That vain and
insolent young man," as a British ambassador called him, had found the
battlefield an easy short cut to fame, and was blowing hard on the dying
embers of war.

In short, matters were going badly, and Vergennes could see no solution
but a new diplomatic approach to Shelburne. Let Rayneval return to Lon-
don, with modified terms of peace; Vergennes's own son would accom-
pany him, to lend weight to the mission. Let them express to Shelburne
the hope that England would not this time bar the way to peace, and the
warning of disaster if she did. Let England be reasonable, yield up Dom-
inica and Ceylon, and France would do her utmost to make sure that she
was compensated by easy terms with the Americans. At this stage, Vergennes
had still heard nothing of Jay's violation of the orders of Congress. Like
Shelburne, he was deeply conscious of gambling his career and reputation
on the draw of a 'card. To leave no doubt that he sincerely sought a fair
and reasonable treaty with England, he wrote a long private letter to the
Prime Minister, concluding it with a rueful little sentence: "Eh! What I
would not risk to be useful to mankind!" The sigh in the words was not lost
on Shdburaev Both men had put all tiheii stakes on the table, and both
were fated to lose.

[46] THE PEACEMAKERS 1782-1783

5. The Gentleman from Massachusetts

It was September when John Adams finally appeared in Paris, where Jay
awaited him with considerable uneasiness. He counted on Adams's well-
known dislike of Vergennes, for they had met and clashed a few years
earlier; but the New Englander was not a predictable man. On his attitude
toward Jay's mutiny against the Congress much might hinge, including the
political future of John Jay. Adams's long history of zealous effort for the
Revolution and his stubborn quality in strategy and debate had given him
great influence in America. Technically, he was the official head of the
commissioners, for his had been the first name approved by the Congress
for the peacemaking task. A word from him to Philadelphia could be
decisive.

It was a relief to Jay to find his opinionated colleague wholly enthusiastic
about the new development In Adams's view, Congress, by aligning
America rigidly with France, had ignominously "surrendered their own
sovereignty into the hands of a French minister. It is a glory to have broken
such infamous orders!" He warned the Philadelphia politicos that if their
ministers abroad suffered themselves to be intimidated, the Mississippi
boundary would be lost. He reminded Secretary Livingston that with the
transatlantic mails requiring more than a month, often two months each
way, the commissioners could not be handcuffed by the need to wait for
instructions from Philadelphia. To his diary he confided that Jay was
probably honest, but that ''Franklin's cunning will be to divide us; to this
and he will provoke, he will insinuate, he will intrigue, he will manoeuvre."
As for Vergennes, he said flatly, "He means to keep us down if he can/'

Whatever satisfaction Jay had found in challenging Franklin's judgment
was vastly multiplied in the mind of Adams, who was beset by morbid sus-
picion of the doctor's good faith. Although the phrase had not yet been
coined, guilt by association was already a weapon of politics. Franklin's son
was a traitor in American eyes; his former associate in Paris, Silas Deane,
had been charged with misappropriation of public funds; and the author
of the reckless charges against Deane, the malignant Arthur Lee, had written
to the Congress that Franklin himself was "concerned ia the plunder, and
in time we shall collect the proofs."

As a man who had worked at the very heart of American politics, Adams
knew better than to let his opinions of men be swayed by mere accusation
what patriot had not been attacked and abused by enemies? But he joined
with Lee in questioning the disinterestedness of the dbcto/s devotion to
the revolutionary cause.

Everyone was aware that Franklin, philosopher though he was, in his
younger days had an eye for business* and Kked to turn a dollar as wdJ as

THE RAYNEVAL AFFAIR [ 47 ]

the next man. During his pre-Revolutionary service in England, as agent
for the Massachusetts colony, he had put a finger into more than one specu-
lative pie, and pulled out more than one plum. One could put two and two
together, and if so inclined, read the sum as scandal. For example, Franklin
had acquired substantial holdings of land in Nova Scotia, which would be
worth little to him unless they became American territory; could this be
the reason why he was so insistent on the cession of Canada? As for his
failure to demand the Mississippi boundary from the outset might not
his stock in the Illinois- Wabash Company provide the answer? This specu-
lative venture, backed by British capital, was founded on large tracts of
Illinois prairie acquired from Indian tribes. If the title of the tribes was
confirmed by England, the stockholders might still validate their holdings
and reap vast profits, but if the region should be ceded to the United
States, the company's claims would be wiped out. Seeking the reason why
Franklin had written the memorandum on Canada, and why he resisted
Jay's effort to deal directly with Shelburne, Adams considered that he might
be craftily seeking to keep the Mississippi lands in British hands for the
benefit of his own pocket.

Later, Adams encouraged Congressional inquiry into Franklin's service
as commissioner; and only reluctantly was he finally persuaded to express
publicly his confidence in the doctor's honor and loyalty. In Paris, in 1782,
animosity and suspicion ran away with him. To Franklin's mild attempts
to explain his first statement of terms to Oswald, in which mention of
the Mississippi was omitted, he paid little attention. And yet the facts
were so obvious, so simple, as to need no explanation. Before the Revolution,
the British had formally annexed the territory north of the Ohio and east
of the Mississippi to the province of Quebec, and it was so shown on the
English and French maps of the period used by Oswald and Franklin. In
asking for Canada, Franklin had also been asking for the Mississippi boun-
dary, and had not thought it necessary to say so. But neither Adams nor
Jay was convinced of this.

Like Jay, the stern New Englander felt that Franklin's open delight in
the color and vivacity of French society was a sign of dangerous weakness.
Like Jay again, there was in him a need to prove his personal ascendancy
in the contest for fame which he conceived to be taking place between him-
self and Franklin. In one of his letters home he recounts compliments paid
him in Amsterdam, and one especially which elated him; a Dutch official
had called him "the Washington of negotiation." He could not resist add-
ing, 'This would Mil Franklin if he should hear of it" ... a remark which,
while grossly misreading Franklin's nature, revealed much about Adams'$.
Franklin, on his part, accepted Adams's hostility with q^iet tolerance. He
had learned early the importance of not wasting eneprgy in faying to be

[48] THE PEACEMAKERS 1782-1783

better than others. Simply to be better than the man he used to be had
been his own lifelong aim; and displays of envy in others surprised him
more than they hurt him. In his view, Adams was "an honest man, often
a wise one, but sometimes, and in some things, absolutely out of his senses."

Adams brought to Paris not only his personal endorsement of Jay's secret
approach to Shelburae, but also news of a kind calculated to stiffen Ameri-
can spines. Holland had at last agreed to lend the American government
a sum large enough to tide it over current difficulties. This was a triumph
all the greater because it had not long before seemed beyond hope. In the
first year of his mission to the Hague, Adams had found the political atmoS'-
phere so cold and depressing that he wrote of himself as "a man in the
midst of the ocean negotiating for his life among a school of sharks," and
he suspected Holland's negotiators of being in the pay of England. The
fact was, however, that prior to Lord North's fall the prospering Dutch
bankers and merchants saw no reason to risk capital in a loan to an upstart
republic with a dubious future. They preferred to lend their money to
European nations with good credit. Even British interests, as the war
approached its end, were able to borrow in Amsterdam but not the
Americans.

To the Dutch it seemed probable that the union of the states would
soon dissolve; one of them, South Carolina, had entered into separate
negotiations with them for a loan on its own account. Many of Holland's
nobles, led by the Prince of Orange, were flatly opposed to American in-
dependence. It took Shelburne's rise to power in England to alter the
Dutch attitude. Convinced at last that America might survive as a unified
country, and foreseeing its commercial importance, Holland recognized the
new republic; Dutch financiers offered a loan of guilders equivalent to
$3,600,000.

Adams exulted over this event as the financial salvation of his country,
and he was perhaps not wrong. In a letter to Secretary Livingston he even
boasted that his work in Holland had stimulated Shelburne to make his
first overture to Franklin. This was totally without foundation; the fact was
that Shelburne's appointment paved the way for the Dutch loan. Neverthe-
less, Adams's success confirmed in hard commercial terms the military
victories of the Revolutionary War, and helped to set the stage for the
ensuing peace conference.

CHAPTER FOUR

Pandora's Treaty

i. "Hanged or Applauded?"

As the next round of talks with Oswald began, with Franklin still confined
to his house, neither Adams nor Jay fully realized how far the British posi-
tion had changed. Oswald had been reinforced by a career diplomat, Henry
Strachey, who had aggressive and resilient qualities which the merchant
lacked, who argued every disputed point tenaciously, and who privately
considered Jay and Adams great quibblers. He was surprised by their readi-
ness to forget about Canada while insisting on the Mississippi boundary
which Shelburne had never intended to contest. On the two most con-
troversial issues the debts and the Loyalists he persuaded them to accept
the British position. A sly suggestion that the Americans were trying to
swindle British merchants who had advanced them credit in good faith
touched a nerve in the rigidly moral Adams, and he capitulated, growling,
"We don't want to cheat anybody." It was thereupon agreed that "the
creditors on either side shall meet with no lawful impediment" a phrase
which was to haunt the Americans in the years ahead "to the recovery of
the full value in sterling money of all bona fide debts heretofore con-
tracted/'

The problem of the Loyalists, which Shelburne had been ready to wipe
off the slate, was a sticking point. Strachey contended that eighty thousand
or more of these unfortunates were destitute exiles in Canada and England,
their properties gone, their lives in danger should they dare to return to
their homes. At first, the Americans stubbornly closed their ears to all such
appeals to humanity. Their position was complicated by the fact that George
Washington, in accepting Cornwallis's surrender, had stipulated that cap-
tured Tories should be made to stand trial as war criminals a "sublime
decision/* John Adams called it. Franklin was well enough to attend some
of the meetings at which the issue was discussed, and with an anger unusual
in him, summed up his stand: 'Tour ministers require that we should re-
ceive again into our bosom those who have been our bitterest enemies, and
restore their properties who have destroyed urs, and this while the wounds
they have given us are still bleeding!" In the end, however, he gaV$ in td
Jay and Adams, wlao led the way to a compromise. White it wcM-d remain
with th several state erf the Union to determine the treatment tip be
accorded the Loyalists, GtaigBes* wocdd *%am6stly lewmiB^

[50] THE PEACEMAKERS 1782-1783

confiscated properties be restored or paid for. A pious declaration to the
effect that there would be no further persecution of Loyalists was also
included.

While America's north and west boundaries were settled without much
difficulty, when it came to the determination of her southern line the
Englishmen were forced to straddle. Under pressure from Vergennes, Shel-
burne had agreed to return to Spain both the Florida peninsula, which Eng-
land had taken from the Spaniards twenty years earlier, and the region
known as West Florida, including the Gulf coastal plain as far west as
Louisiana. This was a decision the easier to make because Spanish troops
had occupied these regions. As Shelbume told Parliament, trade with the
Floridas was too insignificant to justify a war. But how far north did the
Spanish acquisitions extend? When Adams and Jay pressed for a clear state-
ment on the matter, Oswald finally agreed that, since Spain was to have the
Floridas, the dividing line between West Florida and the United States
should be established at the thirty-first parallel, just south of Natchez.
There was no such restriction, however, in the treaty then being drafted
between England and Spain, The consequence was that in the Spanish view
the Floridas comprised all territory formerly held by the British under that
name, and they claimed land as far north as the Tennessee River and
beyond. It took no great prescience to see that a Spanish-American quarrel
was in the making. But the men of 1782 were too busy with more urgent
problems to do anything to prevent it.

Almost every major position which Franklin had taken with the purpose
of preventing future war between England and America was lost in the
draft of the treaty which emerged from the talks of late October. The broad
conception to which he had persuaded Shelburne, based on the belief that
a wholehearted British effort to conciliate America would lead to an era of
good feeling and active trade by which both countries would greatly profit,
wits now jettisoned. In the perpetuation of the long boundary between the
United States and Canada, he foresaw bitter conflict; in the matters of the
debts and Loyalists, endless dispute.

He was perhaps even more disturbed by the shunting aside of another
of his proposals to Shelbume^-the immediate preparation of a commercial
agreement which would establish free trade between the two countries, with
full reciprocity of treatment for ships, cargoes, and seamen. Oswald and
Strachey made no mention of this agreement. Adams and Jay appeared to
consider it of secondary importance. Gloomily and prophetically, Franklin
remarked to Vaughan that the opportunity 'Tiad been missed and might
never return/' But he would not stand in the way of Adams and Jay, to
whom the prevention of wars to come was a notion too theoretical to
merit much attention, and who emphasized what they conceived to be the

PANDORA'S TREATY [ 51 ]

realities of the situation. They had achieved all that America dared hope
for, they were convinced, when Shelburne agreed to recognize the inde-
pendence of an America stretching north to Canada and west to the Mis-
sissippi. England would evacuate "with all convenient speed" the chain
of forts and trading posts which she had established on the American side
of the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River, and which was the back-
bone of a large and profitable trade in furs. And there was more. The British
would open the Grand Banks to American fishing vessels a gain dear to
the heart of the man from Massachusetts. ("When God Almighty made
the banks of Newfoundland," he said hotly to Oswald at one meeting. *. . .
if Heaven in the creation gave a right, it is ours at least as much as yours";
and the Scot r who had been instructed to yield the point, appeared to give
way to so much ardor.) If to obtain these great advantages, America
made some concessions to British pride, were they not fully justified? At
the end, Adams and Jay were pleased with what they had wrought, and
the British were not dissatisfied. "If," wrote Strachey to Shelburne, "this
is not so good a peace as was expected, I am confident that it is the best
that could have been made. Now are we to be hanged or applauded for
thus rescuing England from the American war?"

2. The Diplomacy of Necessity

As the time approached for signatures to the articles, the three Americans
faced a serious problem: What were they to tell the French? They had ridden
ruthlessly over their instructions from Congress and their agreement with
Vergennes. Their need now was to find a way to enable Franklin to preserve
friendly relations with the minister, for the Dutch credits would not last
long, and France's continued financial support was indispensable to America.
Franklin himself suggested a formula: let the French be given to understand
that the commissioners had agreed merely to a preliminary statement of
conditions to be included in a final treaty, still to be negotiated. A letter
from the Americans went to Vergennes at the same time that they dis-
patched a copy of the articles to Philadelphia for Congressional approval.

The news that they had gone so far in establishing peace terms without
consultation with him could hardly have surprised Vergennes. His system
of espionage was one of the strong spots of the French regime, and it was
unlikely that such a negotiation as the commissioners had been carrying
6n with the British could have escaped his notice or been misinterpreted.
His failure to reply at once denouncing the American action implied his
willingness to accept the situation, After some days he cautiously expressed
his gratified surprise at the many concessions made by tie British who> fee
reunited, **do mot so much maie peace as buy it" He took it for granted
that (be Fiaacb-AMmean affiance was in -

[ J2 ] THE PEACEMAKERS 1782-1783

articles required French approval before they could become effective. "It
were sufficient/' he wrote, ". . * that the two negotiations proceed at an
equal pace, provided that the final efficacy of each depends upon the signa-
ture of the other."

Privately, Vergennes was pleased by one aspect of the new development
its impact on his relations with Spain. It would now be clear to Count
Floridablanca that Spain had little to hope either from England or America,
and so might do well to moderate her demands on France. But whatever
the diplomatic advantage that he could extract from the changed aspect
of affairs, he could not let the Americans deal so cavalierly with the interests
of France without some reproach. A stiff note presently went from him to
Franklin, initiating one of the most masterly and famous exchanges in
diplomatic history. "I am at a loss, sir, to explain your conduct and that
of your colleagues . . . You are wise and discreet, sir; you understand per-
fectly what is due to propriety; you have all your life performed your duties,
I pray you to consider how you propose to fulfill those which are due to
the King."

Franklin was able to deny, on his part, any want of respect to the French
King, "whom we all love and honor." Jay's action in keeping the talks with
England secret he construed as perhaps a neglect of a point of propriety,
but certainly not a violation of the terms of the alliance. The incident must
not be allowed to rupture the friendship of the two nations, after they had
fought together so long and bravely. 'The British, I just now learn, flatter
themselves they have already divided us. I hope this little misunderstanding
will therefore be kept a secret, so that they will find themselves totally mis-
taken/* It was essential, Franklin conveyed, to preserve the fruits of com-
mon victory. And how sad if tie costly American effort were after all to fail
for lack of money!

The one thing Vergennes dared not contemplate, after so much expendi-
ture of French blood and money in the American cause, was a full turning
away by tie United States from France and toward England. The French
government, and perhaps even the monarchy itsdf, would be swamped by
the disgust and ridicule resulting from such a disaster. Empty or not, the
royal treasury had somehow to find money for another American loan. In
a short time Franklin was able to report to a relieved Congress that a new
credit of six million livres, then roughly equivalent to one million dollars,
had been offered by France. This sum, coming on top of the Dutch loan,
enabled the feeble American government to keep afloat in a stormy sea of
debt. But for France the financial effort involved in making the loan was
another step along the inflationary road that led to the revolution of 1789.

As for the Congress* when it heard of Jay's disobedience and Adams's
mutiny, it grumbled, it threatened, it orated, but it yielded. Every delegate

PANDORA'S TREATY [ 53 3

knew that further war threatened havoc. As England was driven by the
need to rescue her infant industrial capitalism from suffocating economic
pressure, as France struggled to stave off the financial collapse of the bank-
rupt monarchy, so the newborn confederation of the United States needed
peace to survive. In the final test, the large authority granted to Jay, Adams,
and Franklin stemmed less from anything stated by the Congress than from
utter necessity.

3. Shelburne h Destroyed

In Whitehall, the postwar tide of liberalism was ebbing fast. Vaughan
wrote to Lord Shelburne, telling of Franklin's concern over the failure to
provide a proper basis for future Anglo-American trade. Belatedly the Prime
Minister began to draft a commercial agreement, which was everything that
the doctor could have desired. Ships of the United States when laden with
goods of their own country were to be allowed to enter all ports of the
British Empire, paying only those duties required of British vessels. Trade
between America and the British West Indies and Canada was to be
entirely free of duties. Shelburne wrote into the document his conviction
that "a peace is good in the exact proportion as it recognizes that [free-trade]
principle/ 7 and prepared to fight for its approval by Parliament. A bill
authorizing the agreement was introduced in the Commons by young Wil-
liam Pitt, then Shelburne's Chancellor of the Exchequer. If, Pitt argued,
unrestricted trade with the American colonies had been profitable to Eng-
land before the Revolution, then unrestricted trade with the independent
and now more populous states must prove even more profitable. Above all,
let them exchange goods freely with the West Indies, where American raw
materials were urgently wanted. The influential Edmund Burke agreed, but
on other grounds: it was to England's advantage to keep the United States
an agricultural country and supply its demands for manufactured goods.
"They will not rival us in manufactures ... Do not treat them as aliens.
Let all prohibitory acts be repealed/'

While the draft commercial agreement was being scrutinized by Parlia-
ment, another major issue came to the fore. Shelburne knew how much
total withdrawal of British troops from American soil meant to the new
nation. As his government set about the complicated four-sided negotiation
aimed at final treaties with France, Spain, Holland, and the United States,
he issued orders to the British troops which still occupied New York to sail
for Canada as soon as possible, and this was done. A similar letter of instruc-
tion was drafted for the Governor of Canada, looking toward early evacua-
tion of England's eigtjt posts on the southern side of ''tfcfe Cftotrifito
But before thfe letter could be sent, a: ddegatioii of Cai^lpB ftn

io 'tofddoo, and .supported by -idtatertbl Btft&b :feAcw, angrily

[54] THE PEACEMAKERS 1782-1783

protested the yielding of the posts. Was it the purpose of the government
to deprive them of their profitable trade with the Indians across the lakes
a trade then valued at 140,000 per year? The very least that the Canadi-
ans expected was a delay. They had accumulated at the forts large quantities
of guns, knives, blankets, whisky, and cloth with which to pay Indian trap-
pers for their furs, and it was their contention that they should be permitted
to complete the exchange of their merchandise, which would otherwise in-
volve a heavy loss. The British government, after all, had promised no more
than to evacuate the forts "with all convenient speed." It was a flexible
phrase.

Simultaneously, in January 1783, heavy pressure was exerted on Shelburne
by the War Office, which warned of the effect of the cession of the posts
on the Indians of the region. The Governor of Canada, General Haldimand,
was quoted as saying that if the United States should some day attack
Canada, the allegiance of the tribes could be of decisive importance. Thou-
sands of Indians had become economically dependent on the British traders,
not only for manufactured goods, but for food, since in the lean years
provisions from the forts helped them survive, "They are a part of our
family," wrote a British general in command at Fort Detroit. The Depart-
ment of Indian Affairs at Montreal declared that rumors of the transfer of
the posts were already causing great unrest among the tribes, who felt them-
selves betrayed. None of this would have been in the least surprising to
Franklin, who knew from personal experience the psychology and econom-
ics of the frontier, and had made his original demand for Canada with
one eye on the fur traders and the Indian problem. To Shelbume, how-
ever, so much concentrated resistance was highly disconcerting. To put off
a decision on the western posts until he could get his bearings was the
obvious move.

Then all at once the power to malce the decision slipped forever out of
his hands, The unforgiving Charles James Fox, impatient for his revenge,
unexpectedly and cynically joined forces with his old enemy, Lord North,
to form an overwhelming coalition against Shelbume. When heavy Whig
attacks were made on the Prime Minister in Parliament and the Tories
remained silent and indifferent, Shelbume hastily turned to the throne. But
his hope that George, who he fancied had become his friend, might again
intercede for him with North quickly dissolved; the King was sympathetic,
he was even indignant on Shelburne's account, but he did nothing. In later
years, the Earl came to the conclusion that George had secretly encouraged
the Tory leaders in their callous conspiracy with Fast. The Psalmist's admo-
nition against putting trust in princes is easily forgotten in the aura of
royalty, even by case-hardened politicians. The minister had lost sight of
the fact that with the American treaty written, there was little reason for

PANDORA'S TREATY [ 55 ]

the King to be concerned for him. With the acceptance of his resignation,
he sank swiftly into the limbo of outmoded statesmen.

A new government, in which Fox as Foreign Secretary was the dominat-
ing figure, promptly succeeded him. When the news reached Paris, it aroused
almost as much speculation as had the fall of Lord North a year earlier. For
the Americans, the great question was whether Fox would disavow the work
of Oswald and Strachey. This he could easily have done, since the pro-
visional articles had not been formally approved by either government. The
pace of the peace talks slowed while the British envoys awaited instructions
from Fox. Meanwhile, inspired articles full of threats against America began
to fill the London press. Sir Henry Clinton stirred enthusiasm with the claim
that with ten thousand fresh troops he could recapture all thirteen colonies
for England. The Morning Herald reported that odds of forty to one were
being offered that the treaty with America would not be signed, or if signed
would not include the provisional articles agreed upon a few months earlier.
Oswald was to be recalled by Fox.

If all this was propaganda calculated to alarm the American envoys in
Paris and weaken their bargaining power, it failed of its purpose. They were
saddened but not shaken. Adams wrote to his wife Abigail in Massachusetts
that the chances of peace had greatly diminished, and that he considered
another military campaign probable. But he was soon reassured by word
that England would after all abide by the provisional articles. The man
chosen by Fox to replace Oswald turned out to be another old friend of
Franklin's, David Hartley; and the remaining business of the peace con-
ference went on at a brisk pace. The Treaty of Paris was signed by the
combatant powers in September 1783. But all hope had vanished for the
commercial treaty and the early evacuation of the western posts.

4. The Trouble With Treaties

When Ben Franklin said of the treaty of 1783, "There never was a bad
peace or a good war," it was in his mind to influence American opinion in
favor of ratification. He knew, however none better that there never was
a bad peace that did not invite another war. And the treaty made for a bad
peace, in the sense that it failed to anticipate the predicament in which the
governments concerned would find themselves when they attempted to
apply its provisions. Its negotiators had packed a Pandora's box full of
future controversy. The document which they produced at Paris marked a
cessation only of hostilities, not of hostility. As events proved, there was
hardly a clause in it which was not provocative of strain and recrimination.

America's reach to the east bank of the Mississippi brought to a bead Hie
bitter question of navigational rights Claimed by the Spanish, while the
obscurities surrounding the area of West Florida spelfed 'btaftte m tbe soutfi.

[ 56 ] THE PEACEMAKERS 1782-1783

England continued to hold the forts and trading posts which she had
promised to relinquish. The terminology of the fisheries clause proved to be
ambiguous, for while the Americans believed that their right to fish
the Grand Banks had been recognized, the British had managed so to word
the article as to convey that they were granting a "liberty" which might be
withdrawn; and recriminations followed. The American states, disregarding
the injunctions of Congress, held on to confiscated Loyalist properties; and
lynchings of Loyalists who had the temerity to appear in person to press
their claims added to the British sense of outrage. As for lawful debts owing
to British subjects, and estimated in England at the time to have a value
approaching $25,000,000, an easy settlement could hardly have been ex-
pected by the signers of the treaty. Two decades more would elapse, and
much mutual abuse, before the United States finally paid England the sum
of $2,600,000 to settle these claims. Similarly disregarded was a provision
calling on England to reimburse Americans from whom British troops had
taken some three thousand Negro slaves. These had allegedly been given
their freedom, and London held back from any serious approach to indemni-
fication, pending settlements of the claims of Loyalists and of merchants'
debts.

Even the boundary with Canada, which the negotiators thought had been
fixed beyond cavil, sixty years later became a source of irritation so violent
as to bring the two countries close to war. The Maine boundary dispute of
1842 grew in part out of Anglo-American differences as to the line agreed
to by Oswald. By then the map which had been attached to the British
copy of the treaty had disappeared from the archives of the Foreign
Office.

Not that there is much reason to suppose that a better peace could have
been made, given the circumstances of Hie moment. Shelburne and Frank-
En, making a heroic try to write the terms of peace in a way calculated to
avert future war, could not find around than the generosity and under-
standing needed for success. The resulting treaty dealt only with problems,
not with purpose. Changing conditions made it obsolete almost from the
moment of signature. This early obsolescence (which is characteristic of
most treaties) subsequently throttled the affirmative efforts of British and
American diplomacy. The statesmen who came afterward were forever pick-
ing up the debris from the decayed treaty like architects put to cleaning
streets, and given no time to create new structures. Both nations were as
reluctant to admit the out-of-dateness of clauses which seemed to favor them
as children are to hear a familiar story told with a different ending. The
treaty, they pretended, was a permanent contract. Attempts to enforce it
provoked disputes which grew to huge proportions before the need for re-
vision was admitted by both sides. By that time, healthy compromise had

PANDORA'S TREATY [ 57 1

become exceedingly difficult to effect. This was a point clearly understood
by Franklin. He recognized that arrangements designed to avoid future war
must be adopted while the desire for peace is hot, that if the treaty makers
do not seize the moment of hope and act with resolution they are unlikely
to produce in the end anything more than the terms of a temporary truce,
that once a war has ended and the pressure groups in the nations begin to
make themselves heard, the chances of a lasting peace steadily diminish.
The treaty was hardly signed before the Fox-North coalition dissolved,
and a new government, with William Pitt as Prime Minister, took office.
So far as Anglo-American relations were concerned, nothing changed. The
adverse drift continued. Shelburne's efforts to heal the wounds of war and
promote Anglo-American friendship had lost almost all support in Parlia-
ment. The treaty itself was not in danger; its ratification would be carried
through for the sake of England's internal economy. But as Shelburne and
Franklin both knew, a treaty gives little hope of enduring peace unless the
spirit behind it is genuinely amicable.

PART TWO

THE TROUBLE BEGINS

1783-1792

CHAPTER ONE

Second Thoughts of a Secretary of State

i. With All Convenient Speed

With the treaty out of the way, the American commissioners separated, each
to pursue a new phase of his career. John Jay exchanged a formal bow with
Vergennes, and gladly set sail with his family for Philadelphia, where he was
scheduled to replace Livingston as Secretary of State. John Adams went
to London as minister to the Court of St. James, a post for which he had
long been eager, as carrying more prestige than any other American diplo-
matic appointment, including Franklin's. The ailing but still lively doctor
could not have cared less. He was pleased by the action of the Congress in
providing him with a competent subordinate to help look after America's
affairs in Paris, thus making it possible for him to devote more time to
writing and scientific investigation,

As the only one of the three peacemakers to return at once to the United
States, John Jay was given a fine welcome, and was the honored guest at
many a banquet. In taking over his new position at the heart of the
government, he was under the impression that England seriously intended
to fulfill her treaty obligations. It was something of a shock to him to find
otherwise. Adams reported from London that the Duke of Leeds, Pitt's
Foreign Minister, seeking to justify England's delay in evacuating the west-
ern posts, had made an excuse so perfunctory as to be offensive. It was not
feasible, Leeds said, to abandon the posts before American troops were
ready to occupy them, for hasty action would invite bloody Indian up-
risings. Adams's reply that American garrisons could soon be ready, so that
delay was unnecessary, was shrugged aside.

The Congress then sent special agents into the Great Lakes area for the
purpose of reassuring and conciliating the hostile tribes. This move proved
wholly futile. British commanders of the forts promptly took steps to
frustrate the work of the agents by persuading the important Indian chiefs
to ignore them. The situation on the border steadily deteriorated. Early in
1784 a group of chiefs approached the British with the proposal that their
tribes make open war on American settlements to the south. The official
British reply was a recommendation to the Indians to "desist from hostili-
ties," but the words were uttered with a smile. Soon thereafter, braves of the
Great Lakes region, carrying British muskets, attacked seveual settlements
on the American side and massacred the inhabitants.

[62] THE TROUBLE BEGINS 1783-1792

When word of this outrage reached Adams in London, and he made an
incensed protest, he was told that the Indian forays were merely evidence
of American inability to control the tribes. Jay and Adams now pressed
hard on Leeds, asking him to define the phrase "with all convenient speed,"
and to indicate a specific time for the evacuation. The Foreign Secretary was
somewhat uncomfortable; unless England were to throw caution aside, and
openly reveal her intention to ignore her obligation under the treaty, she
needed a better pretext for clinging to the posts. Events played into his
hands. The legislature of Virginia, dissatisfied with the article of the treaty
dealing with pre-Revolutionary debts owed to British merchants, passed a
law deliberately exempting its citizens from the necessity of paying such
debts. Here was a "lawful impediment" to the collection of the debts,
such as the Treaty of 1783 had too optimistically promised to prevent.
From London's standpoint, this contemptuous snap of the fingers toward
Congress by a powerful state came at the perfect moment. Whatever Eng-
land's loss in Virginia, it was offset twenty times over by her gain in Canada.
She could now allege that she was holding on to the western posts only in
reprisal for an American violation of the treaty. With the certainty that the
diplomatic tangle would take years to unsnarl, Pitt bluntly issued an order
to his commanders on the Canadian border to stay where they were.

Patriotic fury ran through the American states like a fever, and John Jay's
exasperation burst into a public warning. The posts in British hands, he
declared, were "pledges of enmity; and the time must and will come when
the seeds of ... hatred, which such measures always sow, will produce very
bitter fruit." In the same pessimistic vein, Franklin wrote from Paris that it
was "essential to be on guard against the British . . . England still hopes
that some disunion among ourselves may afford them an opportunity of
recovering their dominion . . . We cannot be too careful to preserve the
friendships we have acquired abroad . . . since we know not how soon we
may have a fresh occasion for friends, for credit and for reputation."

With all this, the breaches of the treaty ware not allowed to prevent its
ratification in 1784, both in London and in Philadelphia, There was, how-
ever, a difference in spirit between the two countries in accepting it. The
experienced British had their tongues in their cheeks; the Americans their
lips compressed.

2. The Nearer to England, the Farther from France
Within a few months after he had vigorously denounced British high-
handedness, John Jay suddenly shifted his ground. His first and, there is no
reason to doubt, genuine indignation at England's violations of the treaty
gave way to a certain judiciousness, and then to an extraordinary tolerance.
In his heart he had always been more conservative than in his official words;

SECOND THOUGHTS OF A SECRETARY OF STATE [ 63 ]

his inner identification was always with the aristocracy; he drew back with
alarm from the hot radicalism of the angry Thomases, Paine and Jefferson.
Benjamin Vaughan's letters give some reason to believe that Jay's insistence
on approaching Shelburne directly in 1782 was based in part on his belief
that close ties with England would give far more security to American men
of property than would any alliance with France. This hidden core of pro-
British feeling only awaited a favorable time to assert itself in his public
policy. And the time had come. A new and powerful influence had begun to
mold the American economy. Trade with England was gathering momen-
tum. Important merchants, especially in the northern states, were urging that
in the interests of good business a milder tone be adopted toward the
British. Prominent among the advocates of restraint was the persuasive
Alexander Hamilton, who in spite of his youth he was then twenty-seven
years old commanded respect from Jay as from every other man of affairs
in America, Hamilton was convinced that in view of the weakness of the
Confederation and the troubles among the states it would be folly to
antagonize England further. While he never openly said that he expected
America soon to return voluntarily to the British empire, it was widely be-
lieved that this was his conviction, and many wealthy men shared it.

Jay himself, in 1784, privately questioned America's chances of survival
as a unified country, if she insisted on independence. For the Continental
Congress was bankrupt. Lacking power to tax the citizens of the constituent
states, it had been forced to support its undertakings by foreign loans and
the sale of bonds. Now, with credit exhausted,, its debts huge, it could do
nothing to prevent these bonds from depreciating until they sold at half
their face value or less. A kind of financial anarchy was spreading through
the land. Scarcity of specie made it increasingly difficult for debtors to meet
taxes, mortgages, and bills. The rural areas especially felt the pinch*
Throughout the country evictions, foreclosures, and bankruptcies became
more and more prevalent A popular demand arose for measures which
would in effect repudiate old debts such as the printing of inflationary
paper money. In Massachusetts, Daniel Shays led fifteen hundred angry
farmers in an armed revolt which testified to the depth of feeling in the
debtor class, and which threw the legislatures and courts into a panic
from Boston to Savannah.

A dim hope of economic salvation for the Confederation lay in one
direction only an increase in trade krge enough so that duties levied on
importations could meet some of the more pressing obligations of the
government But where would these increased duties come from, if not from
British caigpes? Even before the war had ended* Massachusetts concerns
had been in touch with corresporadepts in England to negotiate for goods
and credits. Revolution or no revolution, the old habits of doing business

[64] THE TROUBLE BEGINS 1783-1792

were not to be broken, especially when they were supported by a common
language and by similar commercial usages. British manufactures were far
more to the taste of the American market than those of France. The com-
parison with homemade products was even more advantageous for England.
American-made blankets, for example, used shoddy wool, and soon disinte-
grated, but British blankets were warm and sturdy. American muskets were
said to be less true than the British, American iron to rust twice as fast
Among the Indians, it had become common to speak of any inferior
product, regardless of its origin, as American,

Control of credit alone gave England the upper hand. By granting credit
on a single cargo, a British merchant could bind his transatlantic customers
to him. Before the American buyer could obtain another cargo he would
have to pay for the kst one; to get money to meet his debt he would have to
dispose of the cargo already received; in selling these goods he established
the market for similar shipments to come. The conclusion of the first deal
with a British supplier locked the American merchant into a fixed credit
and marketing pattern and after seven lean years the eager Americans were
not disposed to haggle.

By 1784 American trade had become almost as dependent on England
as it had been in colonial days. The British were taken by surprise. They had
expected stiff competition from France. Before the peace treaty was signed,
and when they had not as yet put any substantial amount of shipping into
the transatlantic run, England's press reported with alarm that the French
had provided 160 ships and 3400 sailors to carry cargoes to America. The
London Chronicle of December 3, 1783, went so far as to complain that
"France's exclusive attitude toward American trade is the principal obstruc-
tion in the way of peace/' What was not then realized in London was that
the French merchants were for the most part still caught in the fallacies of
primitive capitalism, with its extreme caution in the granting of credits, its
indifference to customer preferences, and its demands for prompt payment
in specie or bullion. This antedduvian attitude, coupled with the language
barrier, made it impossible for the businessmen of France to obtain a firm
hold on the American market during the war years. In spite of all the friction
between England and the United States, their economic ties were soon too
strong to be broken* In the words of a shrewd Frenchman, Talleyrand, re-
porting this situation to his government a little later,, 'The first years after
a war are decisive in determining the commercial systems of states."

As Jay saw it, the entire policy of France toward the United States was
founded on a false assumption for which Vergennes was largely responsible
that the new republic, if kept in a weakened economic condition, would
be dependent on French protection, and so would serve French political
interests. It was on this assumption that France insisted on esdjaterritarial

SECOND THOUGHTS OF A SECRETARY OF STATE [ 65 ]

privileges for her consuls in American ports, giving them the same kind of
power that representatives of the United States were to demand in China
a century later. To add to the growing misunderstanding between the two
countries, Vergennes persistently reproached Thomas Jefferson, who had
succeeded Franklin in Paris, for American delay in paying back the wartime
loans made by France a demand the more irritating because it was so im-
possible of fulfillment

3. An Act of Treason?

The new line of Jay's thinking showed itself in a report which he made
to the Continental Congress on the subject of the western posts. Many
delegates were astounded by its unconcealed justification of England's
position. Jay did not say that, for the sake of British trade, the United States
had to be prepared to make political sacrifices; on the contrary, he based his
argument on the moral ground that the United States had herself been
guilty of so many treaty violations that it had little right to object to Eng-
land's; but the sophisticated understood the economic urgencies that lay
behind.

Historians have since learned that Jay, at this time, was guilty of an act
which on the surface seems so gross an indiscretion that he has even been
accused of something very like treason. Although his report to the Congress
was secret, he deliberately allowed its contents to become known to the
British Government His confidant in the matter was England's consul in
New York, Sir John Temple, a prominent figure in the rarefied social circle
of the Jays, and one of their close friends. Through Temple^ word went to
London of Jay's stand on the western posts.

Compared with Washington, Franklin, or Jefferson, John Jay was a man
of limited horizons, but in practical affairs his sagacity, realism, discretion,
and integrity were respected by the keenest observers of his time. The ques-
tion of his motive in acting as the voluntary agent of a late enemy intrigues
the mind. Did he do his country a disservice? It is true that if England had
had any intention of modifying her stand on the western posts,, Jay's re-
markable candor must have made her rulers grin. Was he seeking to establish
himself as their friend, in the expectation of an early return by the United
States to the imperial British fold?

This interpretation is almost certainly as wrong as it is cynical. There are
strong reasons to believe that Jay was playing an honorable if dangerous
game* He was in a position to realize, as few Americans then did, that
England had the whip hand^ and her hard use of the economic lash might
have altogether undone the American Gtovamneat The tawptatfom ii
Whitehall to bear down heavily could only be increased by the fulmiraat^ons
Against England then current in the Aiperica^ pcess and, m ti|e Coegrm IB

[66] THE TROUBLE BEGINS 1783-1792

communicating a state secret Jay was almost certainly attempting to mollify
the British Cabinet, by letting them know without delay (for they would
soon find out anyway; since when has Congress long kept a secret?) that at
its center the American Government was disposed to a peaceful, negotiated
settlement. Far from serving Temple, Jay was using him in the interest of
the Confederation. This may have been appeasement, but only in the
narrowest sense could it be termed a betrayal of trust. If Jay's action was
treasonable^ then every statesman who has with calculation leaked the in-
formation which he wanted his antagonist to know a category which in-
cludes the best and ablest of them over the ages would be a traitor.

4. The Disunited States

It did not need Jay to make England realize that responsible men in
America were willing to see their government pay almost any political price
to insure a steady flow of transatlantic trade. The intention to squeeze the
Americans had been openly revealed in the British press and Parliament for
months before. Lust for quick and easy profit was rampant among British
businessmen. Forgotten now were Adam Smith's reasoned plea for free
trade and Shelburne's high-minded talk of enduring peace. The United
States had become again the land of the golden fleece, and the shears were
in England's hand. All that the British manufacturers and merchants
wanted before backing a governmental policy calculated to put the upstart
Americans in their place was assurance that there would be no serious re-
prisals, and this was promptly forthcoming. A pamphlet written by one of
the most influential of England's business leaders, Lord Sheffield, and called
The Commerce of the United States, scored an instant and large success by
asserting that England had nothing to fear from the former colonials. Why,
Sheffield demanded, should the Americans, having insisted on their inde-
pendence^ be given more consideration than any other foreign nation? Why
should their ships be permitted to participate in the lucrative trade with the
British West Indies? By leaving her commerce with America free of treaty
obligations, England could exert all needful pressure on the individual
states, which would never be able to stand together.

All that was insular and reactionary in British tradition responded to
Sheffield's argument, and it captured the government. Leading British
politicians of both parties rallied to an aggressive economic policy, until
William Pitt found it expedient to change his mind on the subject of free
trade, and threw down the commercial gauntlet to America. An order fol-
lowed to the effect that trade between the United States and the British
West Indies could be carried on only in ships built in England and owned
by British subjects. Major American exports, such as fish, were banned from
British colonies. The embittered John Adams wrote to Jay from London,

SECOND THOUGHTS OF A SECRETARY OF STATE [ 67 ]

"This order is issued in full confidence that the United States cannot agree
to act as one nation." This was the heart of the matter. When Massachusetts
in a surge of patriotic anger passed laws excluding British merchandise,
Connecticut promptly invited British cargoes into her harbors, and profited
thereby. George Washington confessed to Lafayette, "It would be idle to
think of making commercial regulations on our part. One state passes a
prohibitory law respecting some article, another state opens wide the avenue
for the admission."

Sheffield proved a sound prophet. Although Americans railed at England's
brutal commercial tactics and claimed that she sought to ruin the states,
although British anger flared when Yankee smugglers wormed their way
into the prohibited West Indies, the essential fact is that the volume of
trade between the two countries soon exceeded all previous records, with
England showing a heavy credit balance. The time was only a few years
away when America would absorb 17 per cent of all British exports, under
conditions exceptionally profitable for England's manufacturers and mer-
chants, while three fourths of all American commerce was with England.

5. "The Touch of a Feather"

The great question in Jay's mind was: even if the Confederation were
saved from internal collapse, could it maintain its territories intact against
external pressure? England's agents in Vermont were intriguing with the
canny Ira Allen and his brother Ethan, who hoped to link their state with
Canada and avail themselves of the St. Lawrence outlet to the sea. To the
west, the frontiersmen of the Ohio valley were being tempted by offers
from the Spaniards to the south and the British to the north.

Most immediate and dangerous of these threats was that from Spain.
Rebuffing all American objections, the Spaniards had occupied Natchez and
announced a claim to lands as far north as Kentucky, Their subversive
activities among the frontiersmen in this area were backed by strong argu-
ments. Protection from Indians? Mighty Spain if she chose could assure it
to the American settlers of the west, the puny United States could not. A
market for surplus crops? The Alleghenies, with their hopeless roads, barred
the way of wagon freigjit to the east, but to the south was New Orleans
and a gate to Europe for cargoes permitted to travel the Spanish-controlled
Mississippi.

To drive home the point, Spain encouraged the savage Indian tribes of
the Tennessee Valley with rifles and supplies. A long series of murderous
forays against the settlers followed, similar to those stimulated by England
in the Great Lakes area. Simultaneously, the Mississippi was closed to
American shipping.

The freedom of the Mississippi was a cause in which, many Americans

[68] THE TROUBLE BEGINS 1783-1792

were ready to spill their hearts' blood, and news of Spain's denial of the
river to the western settlers shook the country. Jay made a powerful protest
to Madrid, asserting "that God Almighty had made that river a highway
for the people of the upper country to go to the sea . . /' and that the
Spanish action threatened the survival of the settlers of the West. The
frontiersmen themselves were of two minds. They were strong violent men,
to whom direct action came naturally, and wild schemes to form an army
and descend in force on Natchez and New Orleans flourished among them.
At the same time, cool calculation suggested another solution separation
from the United States. If the thought of accepting Spanish rule was intoler-
able, there was always England, whose agents,, moving freely through the
countryside, spread glowing promises of a safe and prosperous future under
British protection.

So dangerous was this threat considered by American leaders that George
Washington himself undertook to make an investigatory trip to "the western
country/* His interest was the greater since he himself owned enormous
tracts of land thereland which was to make him an extremely rich man for
his time. On his return, in October 1784, after covering 680 miles on horse-
back, he wrote Benjamin Harrison, then Governor of Virginia, of the need
to help and conciliate the men of the frontier: "The flanks and rear of the
United States are possessed by other powers,, and formidable ones, too . . .
The western settlers (I speak now from my own observation) stand as it
ware upon a pivot The touch of a feather would turn than any way/'

6. The Diplomacy of Don Diego

The situation, as Spain saw it, favored a strong diplomatic offensive. As
agent for this purpose, Count Floridablanca in Madrid selected a gentle-
man of good family, courtly manners, and lofty self-esteem, Don Diego de
Gardoqui. From Spain's high-chinned viewpoint, as expressed in corre-
spondence during 1786, the problem was relatively simple. Louisiana and
the vast fends west of the Mississippi already belonged to Spain. So did the
Florida peninsula and West Florida. One of Floridabknca's chief aims was
to consolidate and develop these rich holdings. The United States, trem-
bling on the brink of disintegration, was to be asked to recognize the
Spanish claim to the Tennessee Valley, and Spanish sovereignty on the
Mississippi. If the matter could be settled to Spain's satisfaction in no other
way, Floridablanca was willing to grant certain trading concessions to
American merchants in exchange. On the appeal of this quid pro quo he put
great reliance^ for the profits and duties of trade with Spain could go some
distance to lift the struggling American Government out of its financial
miseries.

A considerable sum of money was put at the discretion of Gardoqui to

SECOND THOUGHTS OF A SECRETARY OF STATE [69]

enable him to ingratiate himself with American political leaders. In his use
of it he revealed a dexterity worthy of a space-age public-relations man. A
Spanish jackass for breeding purposes was presented to George Washington
in the name of Spanish King Charles III a gift greatly appreciated at
Mount Vernon. To an influential member of the Congressional Committee
for Foreign Affairs, Gardoqui personally made a "loan" of $5000. To John
Jay, he offered luxurious and lively entertainment in an expensive New York
mansion rented for the purpose; and he went to great lengths to win the
good will of the beautiful and influential Mrs. Jay, accompanying her to
dinners, soirees, and dances. "I am acting the gallant," he meticulously re-
ported to Floridablanca, "... in the King's best interest ." It was his firm
belief that Sarah Jay molded her husband's opinions.

A vigorous movement in favor of Gardoquf s proposed treaty gained head
among American merchants along the Atlantic seaboard. The prospect of a
handsome return from the Spanish trade made the struggle over the Missis-
sippi secondary in their eyes. Whether as a result of mercantile pressure, or
Gardoquf s persuasions, or the logic of the times, or all three, John Jay
changed his mind about the highway to the sea made by God Almighty for
the use of the people. Instead, he came to the conclusion that in the trying
years ahead the country stood to profit far more from ocean trade with
Spain than from the thin river traffic of the struggling western settlements.
George Washington, too,, admitted that for years to come loss of the
navigational rights of the Mississippi would not work a great national hard-
ship. As Jay pointed out, those rights would be denied to Americans whether
Spain's offer was accepted or not By coming to terms with Spain, America,
in a state of financial extremity, would give up nothing that she tangibly
possessed and would gain income of great and immediate importance.

Speaking in his capacity as Secretary of State, Jay urged Congress to
allow him to negotiate a treaty in which America's claim to navigate the
Mississippi would be suspended for twenty-five years, in return for com-
mercial advantages to be conceded by Spain. A tornado of protest rose, its
center in the southern states. There wealthy men had been buying large
holdings of western lands. If these lands were to be sold at the anticipated
profit* settlers had to be attracted in large numbers; and how attract them
if their chief trade route was closed? Delegates in the Congress thundered
for days against Jay and the Spaniards. The wrath of Patrick Hemy, whose
western investments were very large, stirred southern hearts when he roared
that he would "rather part with, the confederation than relinquish the
navigation of the Mississippi." The South was confident that even without
northern help it could force the Spaniards to come to tarns. Soon Jay
realized that the treaty could never be ratified uader the Congressional rale
requiring approval by two thirds of the states.

7] THE TROUBLE BEGINS 1783-1792

His effort, however, produced a result which he had not anticipated, and
did not want. It brought into sharp focus serious differences in regional
interest which were to he felt in American politics for decades to come.
Northern financiers and men of business were exasperated by the obduracy
of southern land owners. Western farmers felt themselves betrayed by east-
ern merchants who would let them become "vassals of the merciless Span-
iards." In time, flaring tempers died down; so did threats of separation from
the Union; but throughout the frontier hatred of Spain was coupled with
grim distrust of the magnates of the coastal cities.

Angry as the westerners were, they recognized the advisability of avoiding
extreme measures until they were strong enough to force the issue of the
Mississippi. The time would come so their leaders prophesied when
decaying Spain would be unable to stand against the growing numbers of
farmers, hunters, and boatmen who were steadily pushing into the forests
of the Blue Ridge, the Cumberlands, the Great Smokies, and the valleys of
the Ohio and Tennessee. Moreover, they had friends in high places. Thomas
Jefferson, already identified with agrarian policy, promised that patience
now would be rewarded later. In a letter written from Paris, he went so
far as to suggest that the best time to use force against the Spanish territories
would be when the great powers of western Europe were next engaged in
war.

Even so, the leash holding back the turbulent river men, the "Kaintucks,"
from an assault on Spanish posts was exceedingly flimsy. And Spain was
not slow to recognize the precariousness of her own position. Her first efforts
to put a check on the settlers took the form of bribes to American frontier
leaders, such as the ineffable General Wilkinson, who for years afterward
served as a Spanish agent while occupying major posts in the American
Army and government. When Wilkinson and his kind proved unable to
control the passions of their followers, Spain tried to ease the strain by
granting permission to American boats and rafts to bring certain limited
cargoes down the Mississippi upon payment of high fees and duties. This
grudging measure, however, in no way diminished the latent bellicosity of
the frontier. The ingrained determination of the old Southwest to drive
Spain out of the Floridas and to teach the pro-British eastern merchants a
lesson was to play a significant part in America's policy as 1812 approached.

CHAPTER TWO

America Becomes Capable of War

i. ^in-treated Abroad . . . Consolidate at Home. 97
While engaged in his fruitless negotiation with Gardoqui, Jay was simul-
taneously trying to cope with other potential enemies of the United States,
notably the pirates of Morocco, Algiers,, Tunis, and Tripoli. It had become
the custom of England and the continental powers to pay annual "protec-
tion money" to the rulers of these states for the safe passage of their mer-
chant ships through the Mediterranean, since the tributes came to less than
the cost of a naval war. So long as American colonials had sailed under the
British flag, they too were spared from attack. But after the Revolution
the unprotected Stars and Stripes on a masthead invited a swarm of ruthless
rovers. Seizure of ships and enslavement of crews became so common that
in the late iy8os it was a rare American merchant who dared send a cargo
into Mediterranean waters, and a rare sailor who would sign up for the
voyage. The British, profiting by the elimination of American competition,
may have secretly encouraged the Barbary corsairs. So at least Ben Franklin
thought. In a letter to Livingston, he quoted a London merchant as saying,
"If there were no Algiers, it would be worth England's while to build one."

In 1787 an envoy sent by Jay persuaded the Sultan of Morocco to accept
an annual tribute amounting to about $9000 a year for the right of American
ships to pass his coast unmolested. Algiers and Tunis, however, continued
their depredations, and the Dey of Algiers, unable to extract what he con-
sidered his due from the impoverished Americans, even threatened them
with war. The humiliation of these events added to the resentment then
mounting in American minds over Spain's closing of the Mississippi, over
France's demand for extraterritorial rights in American ports, over British
retention of the western posts, and over Indian aggressions.

Fear of a large-scale Indian war especially agitated the frontiers as the
decade wore on. In 1786, Joseph Brant, the remarkable Mohawk chief and
Christian zealot, was sent under official aegis to London, where he formally
asked Pitt's government to aid the Indian Confederation to protect its lands
against the United States. He came b^ck with great confidence, telling tfre
tribes that England wanted thorn to "stick to their rigjbfe/' that the American
union was falling to pieces, and that many new giins an4 much ammunition
would soon be in tibek hands. The fact was that Pitt had l^ecopie almost

[72] THE TROUBLE BEGINS 1783-1792

indifferent to American views on the western posts. His chief concern in
the matter had always been the possibility that in the event of open war,
France and Spain might decide to join the United States in another
effort to wrest Britain's transatlantic possessions from her. Now such a
development could be ruled out. He had just prevailed on the French to
sign an unprecedented commercial treaty based on free-trade principles.
Traffic was booming across the English Channel. It was altogether unlikely
that King Louis could just then be tempted into an unnecessary war.

To the American people, the times seemed full of dark omens. Yet the
man most intimately concerned with the diplomatic aggravations of the
time, John Jay, was not altogether displeased with what he saw. A resource-
ful nation, like a resourceful person, he was aware, could benefit even from
misfortune. He believed that infringements of America's self-respect, pain-
ful as they were, could contribute mightily to the country's future,, if they
moved the thirteen states toward genuine federation. "The more we are
ill-treated abroad," he foresaw, "the more we shall unite and consolidate at
home." This penetrating utterance came shortly before the Constitutional
Convention assembled at Philadelphia in 1787, for an undertaking then
considered by many to be hopeless.

The mood of the Convention was deeply colored by concern over the
weakness of the central government in its dealings with other nations. While
there was little open discussion of foreign affairs on the floor, every man
present knew that as long as the actual military power of the country re-
mained in the hands of the separate states, defeat in war by England or
Spain was an ominous probability. Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts flatly
expressed the harsh truth: "If the convention does not agree upon a com-
promise a secession will take place, and some foreign sword will do the
work"; while Washington warned against letting the country sink into
'Vretched and contemptible fragments of empire."

In the knowledge of America's military insecurity, the bitter disputes be-
tween skve states and free states* between large and small states, between
commercial states and .agricultural states, had to be compromised. The
remarkable intellectual and moral qualities of the ifty-ive men who met in
Philadelphia to draft the Constitution caused Jefferson to describe them as
"an assembly of demigods/' but it is doubtful that even they could have
found agreement if they had not been commonly animated by a sense of
desperation. The Constitution, "the greatest work ever struck off at a given
time by the brain and purpose of mankind/' in Gladstone's language, was,
at bottom, an act of self-preservation. The logic of national security was
unanswerable. Failure to establish a strong union would invite secession
by one or more states; secession would invite foreign intervention and wary

AMERICA BECOMES CAPABLE OF WAR [ 73 ]

war fought under the weak leadership of a divided Congress might well
mean the end of independence. Radicals like Albert Gallatin and James
Monroe, who feared abuses of power by a strong central government and
so would have preferred to grant no power to be abused, finally succumbed
to the unanswerable fact that only the ability of the nation to organize a
swift common defense against an enemy could assure adequate protection to
all of its regions.

In the writing of the Constitution virtually the only great function of the
national government which was not in some way compromised with state
interests was the authority to wage war. The states were allowed to have
their own militia, but "to provide for the common defense," Congress was
given power to raise and support armies, to build and maintain a navy, to
make rules for the government's land and naval forces, to provide for the
organizing and arming of the militia, and to declare war; while the President
was made commander in chief of all the armed forces. This ready abandon-
ment of military pretensions by the states stands in interesting contrast to
the painful adjustments which had to be made among them on other major
issues. Where slavery was concerned, or the right of secession, or the right of
the national government to coerce a rebellious state, the Constitution
omitted anything that might have caused the southern states to refuse
ratification. The compromises made in these matters were essentially
denationalizing, and together they helped to pave the way for threats of
secession in 1804, 1808, 1820, 1833, and 1850, and finally, for the Civil War.
But behind the clauses dealing with matters military were the uninhibited
energies of nationalism.

2. "With All Its Faults . . ."

When it came to approval of the Constitution by the individual states,
however, even fear of external enemies was not in itself enough to assure
victory. In the state conventions the chief motive for ratification was not
national, but local not danger from abroad, but from angry men just out-
side the door. The property owners from among whom the delegates were
largely chosen were inclined to keep as much power as possible in their
respective state governments, over which they could exercise easy control.
Many of them found the far-reaching powers granted by the Constitution
to the federal administration highly objectionable. But the economics Of the
Constitution were irresistably attractive to them. For it did what mo single
state could do it guaranteed property rights against the pednless mob; anc!
it backed that guarantee with the powers of a federal jttieiary i*irieli ? in
the final test, meant federal guns. According to John AdamvShay$ r s rebel*
Boa in Massachusetts had more to do with the state convention's &p piovaJ

[ 74 1 THE TROUBLE BEGINS 1783-1792

of the Constitution than any other factor. "It was under the effect of this
panic," he wrote,, "that the delegates had been elected, and that they acted."

Precisely the same feature that made the Constitution attractive to men of
property created rampant doubts among the poor. Townsmen in the streets
and farmers in the fields, who had been forced by hard times to sell
depreciated bonds of the Continental Congress, felt that they had been
swindled. Were the bonds now to be redeemed at par for the benefit of
the canny speculators who had bought them at their cheapest? Poor men
were resentful, too, of their local mortgagees, who had lent them inflated
money and expected it to be paid back in hard dollars. Daniel Shays's
sympathizers, whose numbers were growing in every state, saw in the
Constitution an end of hope of legal repudiation of debt. There was
little virtue for them in a strong central government, "one object of
which" as Hamilton bluntly said, was "to restrain the means of cheating
creditors." Thousands of Americans felt that one man's cheating was
another man's justice.

Others were deeply disturbed by the failure of the Constitution as drafted
to guarantee them the full political equality promised by the Declaration
of Independence. If the truth was held to be self-evident that all men were
created equal* why did not the Constitution sustain this principle openly in
the law of the nation? This was a question raised by Thomas Jefferson, who
was troubled by the failure of the document to include a Bill of Rights. If
public opinion polls at the end of 1787 had been able to exert the power
that they acquired in the twentieth century, it is unlikely that the Con-
stitution as we know it could have been ratified. Leaders in many of the
states found it necessary to mollify their citizens by promising to work for
immediate amendment of the Constitution. The consequence was the
adoption, two years later, of the nine amendments which form the Bill of
Rights.

In spite of all grumbling, the sense of a common cause gradually pre-
vailed over sectional and class feeling. Benjamin Franklin's last speech be-
fore the Constitutional Convention at Philadelphia,, and the last major
address of his life, expressed what was IB most hearts: "I agree to this Con-
stitution with all of its faulty if they are such; because I think a general
government necessary for us* and there is no form of government but what
may be a blessing to the people if it is well administered."

With Washington elected first President a thrill of nationality discovered
ran through the country, a great wave of pride in new-found status as a
power among the world's powers. The United States now had within it the
potentiality of waging war, with all the resources of the country pitted
against any nation which encroached on its institutions or interfered with
its expansion. From this time on, American history would be madxd by

AMERICA BECOMES CAPABLE OF WAR [ 75 ]

frequent popular pressure on the government to invoke its war-making
powers. At any provocation from abroad, there was always some offended
and vociferous region, economic class, or racial or religious group which felt
that compromise was unthinkable and war the only recourse for the nation.

CHAPTER THREE

The Nootfea Crisis

i. Pitt and Miranda

When John Jay was asked by the grateful George Washington to choose the
post of his preference in the federal government, since he could not be
President, he decided, after consultation with Mrs. Jay, to become the
country's first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. A new Secretary of State
had to be found, and Washington recalled Thomas Jefferson from France
for the assignment. Adams had already arrived from England to be elected
Vice-President To Washington, Jay, and Jefferson he gave advice not to
replace him in London. It was time, he felt, to repay the British in kind for
their insulting refusal to send an accredited minister to the United States,
and for the indifference which he had encountered at the Court of St.
James. He had been treated there, he recounted, "with a dry decency and
cold civility which appears to have been the premeditated plan from the
beginning."

'England was, in fact, feeling the optimism and self-assurance of booming
ousiness, and was not disposed to make concessions to her rebellious off-
spring across the sea, or to anyone else. William Pitt, then thirty years of
age, was a Prime Minister to delight John Bull aristocratic, handsome,
gifted, astute and above all, successful. His was the Midas touch in diplo-
macy- every treaty that he signed turned to gold. In almost every corner of
the earth England's trade prospered.

Almost every comer. But not in South America, not in Mexico, not in
the Floridas and Louisiana, not in Cuba. Wherever the Spanish flag flew,
there British trade was excluded. For the ambitious Pitt* this was a situation
to be soon corrected. His perceptive eye saw on the map that Spain's im-
mense empire, then at its peak, had expanded beyond her ability to defend
it. Concentrating on ways to break the Spanish monopoly, he encouraged
the famous Venezuelan revolutionary, Francisco de Miranda, precursor of
Bolivar, to come to London, where he hoped to find British support for
the overthrow of Spanish rule in his country.

Miranda's plan was to set up a vast independent monarchy on the shores
of the Caribbean, opening to England as her reward the golden trade of
the Latin-American countries. For Pitt this was a dazzling dream. After
meeting several times with Miranda, he submitted the project to his cabinet.

THE NOOTKA CRISIS [77]

The risks were evident, but no serious objection was raised. If a suitable
pretext for war with Spain could be foundand if France could be
persuaded to remain neutral why not?

2. The Pretext Is Found

Nootka Sound was only a remote spot in a largely unexplored continent,
a small anchorage on the western shore of Vancouver Island, but in 1789 it
loomed suddenly large in world diplomacy. For years the markets of Europe
had heard rumors that wandering cargo ships occasionally picked up seal-
skins and other furs from Nootka's Indians for a pittance, carried them across
the Pacific to China, and there sold them at extraordinary profit for the
adornment of wealthy mandarins. As to which country owned Nootka, there
had long been mild disagreement. Spain contended that the entire west
coast of North America was hers, under an old papal pronouncement; and
besides, it was a Spanish explorer, Juan P6rez, who had discovered Nootka
in 1774. All this England brushed aside, recalling that Captain James Cook
had first made Nootka's commercial possibilities known, and that the first
ship to trade there had been British.

Two flags might have been company, but three was a crowd. When at
the end of 1788 news came that Russian ships had begun to buy Nootka
furs, in quantity, Spain and England moved into action. The Viceroy of
Mexico, who had jurisdiction over all Spanish territory to the north, ordered
several men-of-war to Nootka,, with orders to establish a permanent settle-
ment. At about the same time, several British merchant vessels sailed from
England with a similar purpose. One of these flew the flag of Portugal, to
mislead any Spanish warships encountered on the way.

Spain's ships were the first to arrive, and when the British merchantmen
hove to in the inlet, they saw the Spanish flag on the shore, while Spanish
guns were trained on them from the nearby cruisers. Ignominious surrender
was the only recourse, and the British crews were taken ashore. A nice
question of judgment now arose for the Spanish commando:. He had been
given large authority, but he had no wish to provoke reprisals. After a diffi-
cult interval he released the men and the ships flying the Union Jack with
a warning to respect Spain's waters. But the ship which had anchored tinder
Portugal's colors, it seemed to him^ could properly be regarded as fair prize;
plainly an English vessel, it had flouted maritime law. This ship was accord-
ingly held.

Long weeks elapsed before word of the humiliating affair reached London
and the ears of Pitt, and then in garbled 1 form, indsog it ap$e**' that al of
the British ships had been confiscated and' the crews subjected to long and
harsh imprisonment The providential timing of the news

[78] THE TROUBLE BEGINS 1783-1792

him smile inwardly, even while he frowned for the benefit of Parliament
Spain's calculation in colonizing Nootka was perfectly obvious; England,
she felt, would not fight for so small a gain, especially when France's King
had pledged himself to stand together with his cousin,, Spain's Charles III,
in the event of war. But what Pitt knew, and what Charles and Count
Floridablanca had not yet realized, was that the Bourbon "family compact"
had been made obsolete by recent events in France. In that summer of 1789
the impoverished Louis XVI was in no position to help anybody, not even
himself. The new National Assembly had become a major force in the
French Government Pitts agents in Paris reported that it was showing a
revolutionary spirit, limiting the royal power by an assertive Constitution,
defying the king to raise taxes without its consent Confronted by intrepid
radicals and by his abysmal financial needs, Louis would be hard put to it to
persuade his country to war on Spain's behalf, regardless of the royal honor.

What better moment for England to puncture the inflated balloon of
Spanish pride? A stern note went from London to Madrid: England de-
manded not only the return of her ships and payment of a large indemnity,
but also Spain's abandonment of all her claims in the region around Nootka,
and a share in South America. Reading the British ultimatum, Floridablanca
and Charles III were astounded by its warlike tone. The Foreign Minister
uneasily suspected something of Pitt's reasoning, but in the mind of his
royal master there was no doubt whatever that cousin Louis would keep his
word, that the disturbances in France were merely a passing wind. He agreed
to release the seized ships and the crews, if these were still being held, but
beyond that he would not go. The first Spanish reply to Pitt was in effect a
haughty rejection of his ultimatum- no more and no less than he had
anticipated.

Reports from Spain's embassy in Paris continued to give Charles and
Floridablanca the impression that Louis was master of France, and even the
first violence of the Revolution in July did not deceive them. At Spanish
urging, the French Royalist party introduced into the National Assembly
a resolution calling on France to support the Bourbon alliance. The great
Mirabeau himself, thinking it wise to strengthen the slipping hand of the
King for a time supported this measure. For one or two days there seemed
to be a possibility of its adoption, but thereafter, as upheaval continued in
France, radicals in the Assembly charged that the King's real purpose in
asking for war powers was to effect a counterrevolution, and do away with
the new constitutional government. Against this argument, the war party
had no chance. Dismayed royalty in Madrid suddeply realized that it could
no longer hope for anything from tottering royalty in Paris.

THE NOOXKA CRISIS [ 79 ]

3. The Ardent Young Men of England

Wasting no time, Pitt gave orders to make the British fleet ready for war.
A great propaganda got under way to win popular acceptance, not for a
fight, which the people were ready to welcome, but for taxes, which they
were not. London newspapers announced that Pitt had warned King George
of impending war. One of the British merchant captains seized at Nootka
was brought to London with inflammatory tales of humiliations suffered at
Spanish hands, and after hearing his story Parliament voted 1,000,000 to
bring the navy to fighting strength.

When this word came to Madrid, the trapped Spanish King wrote a
desperate circular letter to all the crowned heads of Europe asking them to
use their influence for peace. He was shocked by their indifference. Diplo-
macy of an extraordinary ruthlessness had forestalled him. Pitt had brought
into the Foreign Ministry a brilliant young scion of the Grenville family,
William Wyndham, soon to become Baron Grenville and to supplant the
Duke of Leeds in the cabinet; and together they had concocted a Machia-
vellian strategy. Russia, they knew,, was interested in Nootka and was thus
a potential ally of Spain; so they used British gold and some provocative
incidents to incite Turkey and Sweden to invade the Czar's territory, and
keep the bear off balance. The thoughts of the Austrian emperor were
similarly diverted from possible intervention on Spain's side by encourag-
ing the King of Prussia to press a claim to territory held by the Hapsburgs.
France was coldly advised to remain neutral, Holland sharply told that if
she lent support of any kind to Spain naval and commercial reprisals would
be taken against her.

The aggressiveness of Pitt and Grenville made some of their elders rear
back in alarm. Lord Shelburne, who had been made Marquess of Lans-
downe, warned Parliament that Pitt was leading the country into foreign
embroilments which once begun, would not easily be ended, and might
lead anywhere. Speaking with hot irony, he said,, "From this era the pacific
system was rejected; the ancient language was revived. France was again
held out as our natural enemy; England was thought equal to dictate to the
whole world . . . our resources were inexhaustible, and our power not to be
resisted . . . Holknd was obliged by force ... to return to our alliance*
France was dictated to; the Turks were excited to murder the Russians . . *
and all this was to be made to terminate in Nootka Sound!"

Only toward the United States did Pitt consider the moment advisable
for a softer tone. In May 1790, when the NoQtfca crisis was at its peak, he
instructed the Govemor of Canada to revew $ policy, h44 tfce fcdiai^
check, and make every effort to qujtivate American friendship. England^ it
wa$ dear, might need pwnissipq to m^rc|i t.roops across the territory of the
United States iti order to seize Louisiana and the Floridas-

[80] THE TROUBLE BEGINS 1783-1792

4. America Takes a Stand

The Nootka controversy, mushrooming suddenly into the threat of war,
was to prove strangely important in the history of American foreign policy.
When word of England's war preparations reached the United States, the
country guessed that Pitt's objectives would include New Orleans, Loui-
siana, and the Floridas. The question arose: what should be done if England
sought to transport troops across the American territory? Would refusal re-
sult in a British invasion of the United States? Old Revolutionary soldiers
grimly welcomed the prospect, but many voices asked, "Why risk a useless
war with England?" Anglophile business men in the East joined with eager
western settlers in demanding that the United States help the British oust
Spain from the Floridas, in return for a division of the spoils. When a
British scheme for leading Creek and Cherokee braves against the Span-
iards was proposed to Governor William Blount of the Tennessee territory,
he readily acquiesced.

A British agent, Lieutenant Colonel Beclcwith, approached Alexander
Hamilton to confide that his government's plan was to march an army
southward from Detroit against the Floridas. With this news Hamilton went
to President Washington, and quoted Beckwith as saying, "Should a war
take place ... the United States would find it to their interest to take part
with Great Britain." Calling a meeting of his advisers, Washington put the
problem before them. Although Hamilton privately favored an Anglo-
American military alliance against Spain, in the cabinet he was guarded,
merely recommending that the British be given permission to cross the
western territory if they asked for it. John Jay followed Hamilton's lead and
advised a wait-and-see policy, while allowing the British to cross. Jefferson
took the other side. He had been working to improve American relations
with Spain; and Count Floridablanca, anxious to assure the neutrality of
the United States, appeared willing to negotiate further relaxation of re-
strictions on Mississippi River traffic. Was it not more desirable to have
weakened Spain as a neighbor to the south than arrogant England? And
what of the military and trading posts still held by the British on American
soil, in violation of the treaty of 1783? Refuse the British request for per-
mission, Jefferson urged; stay out of the war if possible, but remain friendly
to Spain and above all to France.

Vice-President John Adams and Secretary of War Henry Knox advocated
a more determined neutrality. They felt that Washington should sternly re-
sist pressure toward war from both sides. Years before, Adams had told
Richard Oswald in Paris, "It is obvious that all the powers of Europe will be
continually maneuvering with us, to work us into their real or imaginary
balances of power . . . But I think it ought to be our rule not to meddle."

THE NOOTKA. CRISIS [ 8l ]

This was the counsel which finally prevailed with "Washington. America's
policy of non-involvement in European wars was first formulated at the
time of the Nootka controversy, and it was to remain intact until 1812. The
principles which were later embodied in the Monroe Doctrine also emerged
from this decisive meeting^ when Jefferson was instructed to warn the
British that the United States could not be indifferent to a change in
neighbors to the south.

War over Nootka never came^ for the extent of England's military ad-
vantage was painfully obvious to the experienced Floridablanca. His career
was about to be smashed by this crisis, which marked the beginning of the
decline of the Spanish empire; but by sparing Spain a hopeless war he at
least slowed that decline. Overlooking all provocations, and putting up a
strong diplomatic rear-guard action, he retreated far enough to deprive Eng-
land of her pretext for war. Nootka and the surrounding area would be
yielded up, he told the British ambassador in Madrid. Monies would be
paid. Even concessions in South America were possible. But if England
persisted in trying to force Spain to her knees, his country would fight to
the death.

By this time, Miranda's revolutionary scheme had lost some of its luster
for the British Government. Influential Englishmen reminded Pitt that the
internal troubles of France had come largely as a result of her support of
the American Revolution, and drew the inference that it was unsound
policy for any European monarchy to encourage colonial rebellion against
any other. In prolonged and patient conferences between Floridablanca
and British diplomats, the threat of war was talked away. England moder-
ated her sweeping demands for territories in South America, and Spain on
her part agreed to limited British settlements there.

America, too, as it turned out, eventually gained land from the Anglo-
Spanish settlement. Owing to the inadequacy of the maps then available,
the area ceded by Spain to England in the Pacific Northwest was only
vaguely defined. The resulting uncertainty aided the United States in
working out an intricate deal with Spain in 1819 for a vast part of the
region, including the present states of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho.
When England entered a counter-claim, the argument grew into a serious
threat of war. The Oregon controversy of 1844 "Fifty-four forty or fightl"
was in some sense a repercussion of the Nootka Sound affair of 1789.

CHAPTER FOUR

Grenville Vs. Jefferson

i. Success for Little Turtle

William Pitt was an astute manipulator of Parliaments and public opinion,
he was perhaps a genius of political persuasion, but unlike his tremendous
father, he had little feeling for the deeper currents of international relations.
When the Earl of Chatham was Prime Minister he kept all aspects of foreign
policy under his direct supervision, for he knew, as all great statesmen come
to know, how frequently broad policy is twisted and distorted and remade
in practice, how almost painfully its outcome may depend on a detail of
execution or an unforeseeable response by an adversary. Not so his son.
Increasingly Pitt yielded command of diplomatic affairs to the aggressive
Grenville. The chief permanent official of the Foreign Office at the time,
Sir James Burges, commented with amazement that Grenville "is rapidly
gaining a preeminence . . . Pitt gives way to him in a manner very ex-
traordinary . . "

At the time of the Nootka crisis, Pitt was inclined to pacify the United
States by yielding up the western posts, but Grenville's mettlesome
opposition overbore him. And afterward, when there was no longer need to
exercise restraint toward the Americans, the Foreign Minister took overt
command of British policy toward the United States. His motto might have
been "When in doubt, act." The situation across the Atlantic was cloudy,
so he introduced a little lightning. New instructions went to the Canadian
authorities to put maximum pressure on the Americans. One immediate
effect was a lowering of prices on the American border for British-made
rifles, scalping knives, blankets, and whisky. Eager Indians came in a steady
stream to England's Great Lakes trading posts, and wait away again to
spread the rumor that the long-awaited moment was near when all the
western lands would once again belong to the tribes under the benevolent
protection of the Great White Father in the red coat, George III.

All this was related, in Grenvflle's eyes, to his personal belief (which
Pitt did not share) that England would soon be at war in Europe. It seemed
to him that fear of the Indians might produce a chastened mood in America,
and prevent her from trying to seize the border posts at a moment when
England could not reinforce them. The results of his strategy were promptly
felt when a number of strong tribes in Michigan and Ohio were organized
into a loose military combination frankly aimed at the systematic destruction

GRENVILLE VS. JEFFERSON [83]

of American settlements. Their leader was the Miami chief, Little Turtle, a
highly intelligent and capable warrior; and his first raids revealed so much
power, and were so ferociously executed, that the frontiersmen sent out
hurried appeals for aid to Philadelphia. '

Secretary of War Henry Knox responded by dispatching an expeditionary
force to deal with the menace. Its leader, General Josiah Harmar, knew the
western forests, and his troops engaged Little Turtle's braves in a series of
inconclusive running fights, until, hampered by heavy casualties and lack of
supply, he was forced to withdraw from the region. At once the Indian
raids were resumed, even more savagely than before, with bloody massacres
of helpless white families. For more than a year thereafter, repeated outcries
to the government produced only promises of help for the settlers, until in
1791 President Washington, beset by a thousand cares, responded with an
order to muster and equip a small army. About fifteen hundred troops, most
of them raw, were assembled in southern Ohio under the command of
General Arthur St. Clair, who had been made Governor General of the
Northwest Territory.

St. Clair was one of those officers, to be found in every war,, who some-
how manage to command the respect of politicians, press, and public
through sheer personality and charm, and without much regard to actual
military accomplishment. He was the man who, during the Revolution, had
surrendered Fort Ticonderoga to the British without firing a shot. His plan
in the Indian war was simply to close in on the villages of the Miamis and
destroy them, as the quickest way to break the morale of the tribes, but he
had not reckoned on the sagacity and mobility of Little Turtle. While his
column was moving through the forests, it was flanked on both sides by
scores of disciplined Indian detachments, and under heavy fire it broke and
fled. The defeat was not so complete as that which Braddock had sustained
on the Monongahela in 1755, but it was bad enough, and left the western
settlers in a plight even more desperate than before.

England's elated commanders in Canada hardly bothered to deny their
complicity in Little Turtle's successes. It was taken for granted on the border
that open war between England and America was on its way. British garri-
son commanders began to reveal a studied contempt which fretted
American nerves almost as much as the Indian attacks as when an English
colonel at Niagara refused to permit Americans in the vicinity even to
view the falls.

2. Pilt Predicts Peam

At first, neither Pitt noc-Grmvaie^dbe^ bjr.Jfcfcfqp. ,-,

heaval in France. Ratter they wqire delighted to see the

the French weakened^ as they {bought* fe (fee No^iE^

[84] THE TROUBLE BEGINS 1783-1792

to extract benefit for England from confusion in Paris. Pitt's liberal wing
of the Tory party even joined with the Whigs in approving the Revolution's
early achievements, such as the establishment of constitutional government
in France and the discarding of antiquated commercial practices which had
hampered the importation of British goods. When Charles Fox and Edmund
Burke tearfully dissolved a lifelong friendship in a turbulent Parliamentary
debate on the revolution, with Burke predicting that it would "inevitably
promote tyranny, anarchy and revolution" in other countries, and Fox
descanting on its blessings, Pitt remained quietly neutral. He was not to be
swayed either by the rhetoric of young intellectuals like Coleridge and
Wordsworth, who were organizing democratic clubs and writing pamphlets
in praise of French republicanism, or by the hundreds of French aristocrats
then pouring into England with tales of horrors endured at the hands of
sans-culotte mobs. For several years, although the upper levels of British
society in which his roots were fixed were in a state of high agitation, Pitt
held to the opinion that England had no reason to intervene in a purely
French imbroglio. Although Pitt allowed Grenville to encourage the
formation of an Austro-Prussian alliance against France, direct British
participation in the war was so far from his thoughts that he opened Parlia-
ment's spring session in 1792 with a speech in which he congratulated the
nation on the prospect of a long era of peace* and even proposed the re-
mission of certain taxes.

The country responded with enthusiasm to this sunrise view of the future.
The general opinion was that the continental armies then on the move
against France would quickly settle the account of the Marats and Dantons.
Even the down-to-earth Grenville shared this belief; neither he nor Pitt
seems to have sensed the fanatical temper of the French revolutionaries, so
that they were caught off guard by the subsequent march of events. It was
not until late in the year, when French troops singing the "Chant de
Guerre," later known as the "'Marseillaise," won the decisive battle of
Jemappes and swarmed into the Austrian Netherlands that Pitt bowed to
the pressure for war. His decision was taken then not only for strategic
but also for practical commercial reasons. The estuary of the Scheldt River,
long under Dutch control, was regarded by British mercantile interests
almost as their own. When the French compelled the Dutch to open the
Scheldt to their ships, dread of being cut off from a major European
market convulsed the British counting houses.

Chauvelin, the French ambassador to England^ and a man as astute as he
was devious, sensed the danger. Without delay, he called on Pitt to persuade
him that England was in no way menaced, that her ships need not b$
denied the navigation of the Scheldt. He was abruptly dismissed. Once the
specter of French commercial competition raised its head, the British

GRENVUXE VS. JEFFERSON [ 85 ]

government hastily reached for its sword. Grenville wrote in a private letter
that England's aim was "to restrain the progress of French arms and French
principles, even though we should not be the immediate object of attack."
But to England as a whole, long-range military strategy and ideology were
far less compelling as motives for war than the immediate threat to the
flow of commerce on which her survival was felt to depend.

Many liberals in Parliament, including Lord Lansdowne, urged Pitt to
settle differences with the French by negotiation. Pitt replied with a remark
which the heads of conservative nations have been making about foreign
revolutionists from the beginning of time, that there was no government in
France with which to negotiate. In a fiery speech, the former Prime Minister
accused Pitt of evading the issue, reminding him that a similar argument
had been used to prevent negotiation with the American Congress in 1776.
The result in the present case would be equally disastrous, Lansdowne
predicted. Beyond this, he believed, quite correctly, that the government
planned to use intervention in France as an excuse to suppress British
liberties and block impending social and economic reforms. But Cassandra's
voice is seldom heeded. In a short time, the writ of habeas corpus was
suspended, public protests were forbidden, the liberty of assembly sharply
limited, and Britons who had openly sympathized with the Revolution
found themselves in danger of being tried for treason. In leading England
against European radicalism, Pitt had shifted his domestic ground far to
the right.

It was Grenville who composed the royal manifesto which made the war
certain. In November 1792^ King George called on the French people "to
join the standard of an hereditary monarchy," and "to unite themselves
under the empire of law, of morality and of religion." A few weeks later, the
appropriate retort came from the French National Convention, which had
replaced the Assembly a decree urging the subjects of every monarchy in
Europe to rise in rebellion against their king. The Convention then set
about the trial and execution of Louis XVI, and formally declared war on
Great Britain,

3. "Clamors and Combinations"

In the United States, the political implications of the Revolution were
profound, greatly accentuating partisan differences, and speeding the rise
of the two-party system. A frenzy of rejoicing that swept delirious crowds
into the streets of every American city was the initial reaction to tifce faU of
the Bastille, As de Tocqueville remarks, the French Revolution transcended
the flaerely political It had at first a religious daaiacte, with a toividisal
appeal to humanitarian sentiment. A few men of lafge affair^ regardedl tibis
outbreak of ''Bastille fever'* with ritsgimgs, but IB 178$ rnost people to Sail

[86] THE TROUBLE BEGINS 1783-1792

cksses saw in the Revolution the dawning of a new era of republican
triumph, made possible by a "spark from the altar flame of liberty on this
side of the Atlantic." Banquets were held, orations poured forth, streets
were renamed to celebrate the event. In Boston, Royal Exchange Alley be-
came Equality Lane.

After the overthrow of the monarchical Lafayette government in 1792,
sentiment began to change, especially in the high places of American govern-
ment and finance. Hamilton, asked if he were a friend to the Revolution,
flatly replied, "I hold it in abhorrence." To the people generally,, however,
the downfall of the French King was merely the natural and proper goal
of the Revolution. They longed for the defeat of the European monarchies
then organizing for the war against the First Republic. Jefferson, as a
spokesman for this sentiment, wrote: "God send that all the nations who
join in attacking the liberties of France may aid in attainment of their
own."

Up to this time Jefferson and Madison had found difficulty in organizing
an effective radical party, largely because of Washington's warnings against
factionalism. The popularity of the French Revolution helped to solve their
problem, "by providing a psychological springboard for the launching of the
Republican Party later to be the Democratic-Republican, and finally the
Democratic Party. This move was, of course, expressive of much more than
political rivalry. Powerful economic forces were then pounding at American,
as well as at French attitudes. It had become apparent that Hamilton's
financial policy was grossly favorable to the commercial interests of the
eastern cities. When, under his influence, Congress permitted private indi-
viduals to own the stock of the Bank of the United States, with its monopoly
of government financing, there was an explosion of anger among the
Jeffersonians. In July 1791, Madison bluntly deckred that subscriptions to
the stock by wealthy New Yorkers and Phikddphians were "a mere scramble
for public plunder ... by those already loaded with the spoils . . . The
stock-jobbers will become the Praetorian band of the government . . . over-
awing it by clamors and combinations."

The animosities engendered by the dispute over the bank quickened
cleavage on other issues. Large commercial enterprises in New England
and New York, growing rich on Anglo-American trade^ feared that if Pitt
intervened openly in France, popular sentiment in America might push the
United States into war on her side. The danger was the greater because
Americans who owed debts to British merchants saw in such a war a chance
of avoiding payment. Many southern plantation owners were in this position.
Although they drew back from Jefferson's radicalism,, they helped to make
his pro-French and anti-British Republican Party strong in their states.

Pitt was not unaware of the dangers for England inherent ip the rise of

GRENVUXE VS. JEFFERSON [87]

the Republicans under Jefferson. Fashionables in London, to be sure, still
professed to sneer at Philadelphia's diplomatic pretensions, and to regard
Americans as ungrateful colonials who would presently learn to their cost
the enormity of their revolutionary error. But the Nootka incident and
America's refusal to become involved in Europe's disputes had brought
home to the British government the fact that the United States, under its
new Constitution, was a unified power to be reckoned with. If Jefferson,
as Secretary of State, should be given his way, the United States would be
likely to inflict severe reprisals for injurious British actions. Congress, agi-
tated by England's denial of American trade to the British West Indies, had
already considered a bill drafted by Jefferson and designed to curtail British
imports. Only Hamilton's energetic efforts had defeated this measure. The
London press was full of uneasy mutterings, for England's unprecedented
level of prosperity could be gravely damaged by American discrimination
against her commerce.

4. The GremnUe Strategy

Until the rise of the Republican party, Pitt and Grenville had been con-
tent to rely for news of America on British consuls and roving agents, such
as Beckwith. The threat implicit in Jefferson's large popular following caused
Grenville to feel a need for closer study of American opinion. He was
strongly influenced by Hamilton's view, reported in letters from Beckwith,
that apparent British indifference to America was playing into Jefferson's
hands. When in 1791, Grenville decided to send a minister plenipotentiary
to Philadelphia, Hamilton was mightily pleased^ telling Beckwith that the
news would "put an end to the suggestion , . . that we are held in little
consideration by the English government"

Grenville's envoy, George Hammond^ proved to be a young man of con-
siderable diligence and common sense^-perhaps the ablest of a series of
British ministers whose prevailing inadequacy helped to grease the slide
leading to the War of 1812. It is true that he associated largely with wealthy
Federalists in Philadelphia, and, marrying the daughter of one of them,
appears to have borrowed his views of American political life exclusively
from their partisan prejudices. It is true also that at every turn he consulted
with Hamilton, ignoring Secretary of State Jefferson so far as he could. But
since Hamilton and his Federalist following were England's friends, it
would have been arrant folly for Hammond to fail in cultivating them. To
frustrate Jefferson was the Grenville policy, and the young Engjishxraan
studiously applied himself to his task.

Soon after Hammond's arrival, Jefferson wrote him a letter dearly stating
the claims of the American government under the treaty of 1783. Before
the minister replied, he had to await instractioBS from Grenvile. These

I 88 ] THE TROUBLE BEGINS 1783-1792

came three months later, and consisted in essence of an accusation that the
United States had not kept its own engagements under the treaty. To this
Jefferson retorted with a brilliant and detailed analysis of the still fluid
American position on the debt provisions of the treaty and the honest
effort made by Congress in behalf of the Loyalists, as compared with the
unmistakable, emphatic, and overt violations by the British in connection
with the western posts. After a year without a response, Jefferson asked
Hammond when one might be forthcoming. The usual formula, "I am
waiting for instructions from my government^" meant nothing; no reply
was ever made. The obvious implication of the silence was that treaty or
no treaty, England did not intend to negotiate in the matter of the posts,
and simply rested on the fact of possession. Jefferson next tried to persuade
England to consent to the use of American ships in the importation of
British goods. In another note to Hammond, he pointedly commented that
during the century in which England had insisted on controlling the Anglo-
American carrying trade, she had experienced three years of war to each
five years of peace. The warning was clear; but still there was no answer.
Hammond's early letters to London assured Grenville that Jefferson's
Republicans were not strong enough to dominate Washington, that Hamil-
ton's influence would continue to keep American policy realistically tied to
its bread-and-butter commerce with England, and that with Little Turtle's
Indians on the warpath America would not dare to seize the western posts.
There was therefore no reason to debate with Jefferson any of the British
violations of the treaty of 1783. Uncompromising indifference continued
to be the keynote of British policy toward the United States. No serious
negotiations were undertaken to ease the moontrag strain; nothing was done
to reduce the force of American resentment. In spite of active commercial
dealings between tike two countries, the shadow of 1812 was* already visible
twenty years before.

PART THREE

SHADOW OF THE FUTURE

1793-1802

CHAPTER ONE

Persona Non Grata

i. Friendly and Impartial

News of the impending conflict between England and France reached
Philadelphia early in 1793. The popular conviction was that the treaties of
alliance and commerce which America and France had signed in 1778 were
still in force, and would automatically bring the United States into the war.
Most people welcomed the prospect. But in the eyes of some citizens, and
those the most influential, a war with England held terrible danger, and
the revolutionary change in the government of France justified America in
reviewing its position.

The problem took on urgency when a note arrived from the National
Convention in Paris, informing President Washington that a new French
minister would shortly arrive in Philadelphia to replace the representative
of the dethroned king. At a historic meeting of his cabinet on April 19,
1795, Washington put forward a number of questions, which had been
drafted by Hamilton. Should the United States remain neutral? Should the
French Republic's envoy be received, and if he was, would his admission
constitute recognition of the revolutionary government? What position
should be taken with respect to the French treaties?

On the issue of neutrality,, there was no dispute; all the secretaries were
unanimous in agreeing that the United States should if possible stay out
of the war. So, too, with respect to recognition of France and acceptance
of the new envoy. Jefferson had already expressed his doctrine of recognition
(which was to remain in effect until the administration of Woodrow Wilson
and the Mexican and Russian revolutions): "We certainly cannot deny
to other nations the principle on which our own government is founded,
that every nation has a right to govern itself internally under what form
it pleases, and to change these forms at its own will . . ."

Dispute arose, however, in the matter of the treaties. In a fine-spun
legalistic statement, considerably below the level of his usual style, Hamil-
ton argued that the treaties were no longer binding on America. Jefferson
rebutted with a good deal of heat. WMb he wished to avoid war with
England as much as anyone^ he said, he felt it only honest to admit that
"the treaties between the United States and France were nqt treaties be-
tween the United States and Louis Capet . . * Tfaougti both natioris had
since 1778 chaaged their form of gwemabeot the treaties were not annulled

[ 92 ] SHADOW OF THE FUTURE 1793-1802

by these changes. The sentiment of the rest of the cabinet was divided on
the issue, and the meeting ended inconclusively. Three days later, Wash-
ington issued his Neutrality Proclamation in which, however, the word
"neutrality" was not used. American citizens were warned against giving
illegal assistance to either of the warring nations, toward both of which the
United States would remain "friendly and impartial."

To the country as a whole this pronouncement came as a shock and
disappointment. John Marshall, already famous as a practicing attorney,
later described the feeling of the time: "By a great proportion of the
American people it was deemed almost criminal to remain unconcerned
spectators of a conflict between their ancient enemy and republican France
. . . The war was confidently . . . pronounced a war of aggression on the
part of Great Britain . . . The few who did not embrace these opinions
were calumniated as the tools of Britain and the satellites of despotism."
In the popular mind, Washington and Hamilton were especially guilty of
Anglophilia. In the characteristically unbridled style of the time> Republican
orators denounced them as Benedict Arnolds, traitors, and Tories, and many
sober observers believed that in the face of so much public resentment the
government would be unable to maintain its position.

The arrival in Philadelphia of the French minister was awaited as the
moment of crisis. It is tempting to speculate on the probable later course
of history if he had been anyone but the incredible Citizen Edmond Gen6t
A wiser diplomat representing France to America in 1793 might have com-
pelled Washington to implement the alliance. Even as it was, the President's
strong resisting hand was very nearly forced

2. The Higfr Hopes of M. Gen&t

To understand Genf s behavior in the United States, it must be taken
into account that he was a prodigy, almost a genius. At the age of six, he
had spoken classical Greek; at thirteen, he had already translated and
aijnotated two historical works from Swedish; in his twenties he had served
as ambassador to Prussia, Austria, and Russia. Hie world's applause was
as familiar and necessary to him as the <f bravos" of an audience to a
temperamental star of the f ootiigihts* Young as he was^ success for him had
become a habit-forming drug, it was his tyrant A fiery propagandist of
revolution, a vivid speaker and writer, he saw America as a stage on which
to perform, rather than as a nation to be ccmprdbtended. This attitude was
his undoing. His errors, it seems plain in retrospect, grew out of his inability
to fathom the American mind. He never grasped the essential fact that
although the typical American is often sympathetic to rebellion he is
instinctively hostile to revolution. In Geufefs time^ the Unitqd States had
already learned to cling tenaciously to its institutions wbije savagely

PERSONA NON GRATA [93]

cizing the men who administered them. British political thinkers like Ed-
mund Burke perceived that while the French were achieving a genuine
revolution of classes,, the so-called American Revolution had in reality been
little more than a rebellion against an unpopular rule. But in Paris this
distinction was not well understood. The National Convention was misled
by the word "revolution/' and by America's sentimental denunciations of
kings and aristocrats into assuming an identity of interests between the
French and American peoples. It failed to allow for the enormous gap which
had developed between European and American ways of thought One of
Genet's successors, Pierre Adet, was to discover this for himself. Trying to
account for the to himshocking fact that Jefferson, with all his affection
for France, was yet a determined neutralist, he bluntly wrote: "Jefferson . . .
is an American, and as such he cannot sincerely be our friend. An American
is the bom enemy of all the peoples of Europe/' It is a feeling which many
a European diplomat since has shared.

Gent had no grasp whatever of the extent of America's intellectual
separateness from Europe. He saw only the people's fervid partisanship for
underdogs, their hatred of tyranny,, their love of a good fight, and on these
attributes he traded. Selected for his mission by the National Convention
after a brilliant success in annexing the city of Geneva to the French
Republic, on his departure for America he had been given such instructions
as might have been appropriate in seeking to revolutionize another Geneva.
If the attitude of President Washington and the Congress should appear
to be "timid and wavering," he was "to take such steps as ... the
exigencies may require to serve the cause of liberty ... in expectation
that the American government will finally decide to make common cause
with us." His task, it was plain to Gent, was to break any opposition within
the United States by rallying an overwhelming public opinion to the side
of France. And there was more. He was to regard the treaties of 1778 as
still in effect, and to draw every advantage from them until such time as
he could negotiate treaties even more favorable to France. The French
government assured him that the provisions of the existing treaties would
justify him in fitting out privateers in American ports to harass enemy ship-
ping, and in commissioning Indian chiefs into the French Army for service
against the British in Canada. Since Spain, eager for revenge on the
regicides,, had declared war on the French republic, her American colonies
were to be attacked, and Gent was authorized to expend large sums for
the purpose of enticing the Kentucky f rontiersmen into a march oa
Louisiana.

If the purpose of the National Convention had been to alienate America^
instead of to secure her friendship, it coidd not h&ve done better than to
issue these insKxnotioiis.. and afttnodb them te'

[94] SHADOW OF THE FUTURE 1793-1802

3. The Voice of the People

He began auspiciously enough, cannily selecting Charleston as his port
of entry, since the sentiment of the South was especially favorable to France.
Every detail of his arrival had been calculated. The French colors of the
ship on which he came, L' Ambuscade, flew above an English flag, which
had been turned upside down causing old soldiers to remember that when
Comwallis's tioops had marched out of Yorktown to their surrender,, their
fes had played the tune called "The World Turned Upside Down." Slogans
had been emblazoned on U Ambuscade's masts: "Enemies of equality,
diange or trembler' "Free people^ you see in us brothers and friends." Al-
though a consummate egotist, Gen6t had energy, charm, and dash, and his
fast speeches electrified the cheering crowds at Charleston's water front. The
women of the city especially were fascinated by his romantic bearing and
dark, burning eyes* Asking no permission from anyone, availing himself of
Fiance's extraterritorial privilege, conducting himself like a ruler, rather than
the envoy of a foreign nation, he plunged into work with immense zeal.
Charleston's newspapers could hardly keep up with his speeches, orders,
and pronouncements as he bought two swift brigantines, outfitted them as
fighting craft, and sent them out to capture British merchantmen; as he
instructed the French consul to set up a court of admiralty for the trial and
condemnation of prizes brought to port; as he met with the governor of
South Carolina and extracted tacit approval of his acts.

Then, with the plaudits of the town in his ears, he set out by carriage
for Philadelphia, taking a long route through the back country where the
Republican party and pro-French opinion were known to be strongest. In
this way, he assured himself of a continuous ovation on a journey which
lasted nearly a month. Every town through which he passed exploded with
excitement. The Republicans took him to their hearts, wined him, dined
him, orated at hinv listened breathlessly to his every word. Accounts of his
triumphs preceded him, and when- he finally reached the outskirts of
Philadelphia, cheering thousands were Baiting to escort him to the residence
prepared for him in the city. British-bom William Cobbett described in his
Porcupine '$ Gazette a fantastic Republican banquet g^ven to Gent the
day after his arrival, and told satirically how,, ^ftex the singing of the
"Marseillaise," the cap of Liberty was placed on his head, "and it then
travelled from head to head around the table, each wearer enlivening the
scene with a patriotiq sentiment." At this and many other functions in
Genet's honor, speakers pointed out the contrast between the yoiai^g
Frenchman's democratic ways, his warm fraternal embraces?, his imdliias
to talk to anyone, and the austere and almost regal bearing <|f George Wash-

PERSONA NON GRATA [ 95 1

ington, with whom it was difficult for any except the most prominent to
obtain an audience.

The first jarring note for the new minister had come during his journey
northward, when he heard of the Neutrality Proclamation. This was a
challenge to the very heart of his mission, and he did not intend to let it
pass. Next, he heard that the President had decided to forbid the commis-
sioning of privateers in American ports. His anger grew, for the harrying of
British commerce was a major objective of French strategy. And with rea-
son; for Grenville was then busily seeking diplomatic agreements with
European neutrals to prevent needed food supplies, notably grain, from
reaching the French West Indies, and the only reply France could make
was to disrupt England's West Indian trade by the use of privateers
out of American bases.

Gen6t was hotheaded, he had exalted notions of himself, but he also had
courage. As he saw it, only one course was open to him to ignore the
American government's declarations. This he was bold enough to attempt.
The roars of the crowds had convinced him that the American people would
soon compel Washington to reverse his stand, and that a break between
the United States and England was imminent. Every day brought news to
strengthen his confidence. The Republican press reported that Grenville
had treated with silent contempt Jefferson's notes on the western posts,
that England was now openly encouraging Indians of the Great Lakes region
to set up an independent state of their own. Under such provocation, how
could Gen&'s privateers be denied the freedom of American ports? They
were America's reply, as well as France's, to British aggression.

4. "Old Washington Envies Me"

The National Gazette, edited by Philip Freneau, a proteg6 of Jefferson,
and a member of his staff in the Department of State, went so far as to
assure Gen6t that the treaties of 1778 would be upheld, for "tihanks to our
God, the sovereignty still resides with THE PEOPLE, and ... neither
proclamations nor royal demeanour and state can prevent them from exer-
cising it," It was an open secret that Washington, deeply hurt by Freneau's
attacks, had asked Jefferson to end his sinecure with the government, and
that the Secretary had courteously but firmly declined to do so. All the
auguries seemed so favorable to Gent that he could not resist writing to
the Minister of Foreign Affairs in Paris of "the enthusiasm and entire
devotion of our brothers in the United States^ and to assett tttat th?
Neutrality Proclamation was a dead letter.

From this time, he took the bridle off his tongue. When two eiiazem af
Charleston who defied the pmdamatioo by enlisting on oe oi
privateers were feasted* h denounced the gwcpiuimt ia pint forits

[96] SHADOW OF THE FUTURE 1793-1802

"against the common and glorious cause of liberty." The President, he dared
to tell Jefferson, had exceeded his powers; only Congress had the right to
determine "that this solemn engagement [the treaty of 1778] shall not be
performed . . . [and] to shackle our operations/' He convinced himself
that when Congress returned to Philadelphia after the summer, the House
of Representatives, with a Republican majority, would force the President
to withdraw the proclamation, if he had not already yielded to public pres-
sure by that time.

It was in this state of mind that he finally presented his credentials to
Washington a ceremony which he had deliberately put oi until the power
of his position should be made clear. In spite of all that he had heard of the
President, he was disconcerted by the interview. There was something about
Washington's majestic presence and reserved force which intimidated
even his friends; and GenSt was received with the barest and coldest for-
malities. The President, while speaking briefly of the friendship of the
United States for France^ said not a word of the revolution. It was rumored
that he had been disgusted by the bloody turn of events in Paris, to the
point where he would have preferred a return to the old monarchy, if that
had been possible; but Gen6t hardly expected to be received in a room,
from the walls of which there stared at him medallion portraits of Louis
XVI, who had gone to the guillotine only a few months before, and of
other members of the royal family.

The Frenchman then became as aggressive as the President was aloof.
Vehemently he protested the decision on the privateers; urgently he de-
manded that the United States abide by the treaty of 1778, which implied
permission for all his actions. He was heard out, and no more. When he
went away he was chilled and angry, unable to understand Washington's
indifference to his logic,, determined not to be put off his course. An explana-
tion of the President's attitude presently occurred to him: no doubt it was
clue to per sonal pique *'OId Washington," he told his admirers that night,
^envies me my success"

Aad success it almost was. If any other man than the rocklike Washington
had beep his antagonist, the Gent tempest would almost certainly have
Swfe^t the United States into war. Genet's techniques of propaganda strongly
suggest the methods used by twentieth-century Soviet emissaries in weak
countries. He specialized in crowds. At one time ten thousand Republicans
swarmed through Philadelphia's streets and threatened to drag Washington
out of its residence if he did aot at once cieelare war on England, It was
Gen&fs belief that the methods used by Danton and Marat in organizing
the Pare communes could be applied anywhere to inflame the passions of
a frustrated citizenry. The machinery of his day for keeping the mass of
Americans misinformed was primitive by later standards, bat lie wed It ike

PERSONA NOH GRATA

a master. Ugly rumors about the administration spread from his house. His
secretary, hand-picked for ability with the pen, assisted Republican fanatics
in composing scurrilous attacks on the President, reviving the old canard
that he had monarchical ambitions. Elaborate symbolism was employed; at
a dinner for Gent attended by the governor of Pennsylvania,, Thomas
Mifflin, each guest plunged a knife into the head of a roast pig to show
approval of the fate of King Louis, while cries of "Death to the tyrant!"
rang through the room. Woodcut prints showing the President being
guillotined were distributed. The streets of Philadelphia at night resounded
with American voices singing the "Marseillaise." Day after day mobs
gathered in front of Washington's house and shouted his damnation. The
weary President swallowed his gorge and continued to go imperturbably
about the business of government, but it was John Adams's opinion, as he
looked back in later years, that pure chance, in the form of an epidemic of
yellow fever, had rescued Washington from an otherwise hopeless situation.
When the first news of the disease was published, fear of contagion swiftly
overcame political f renzy* and the potentially violent crowds could no longer
be assembled.

The epidemic notwithstanding, Genet's power for a time continued great.
Paying no attention to the prohibitions of the government, relying wholly
on public opinion, he proceeded to buy and equip fourteen more pri-
vateers in Boston, Philadelphia, Charleston, and Savannah. The resentful
Washington saw himself flouted by the minister of a foreign power whose
ships defiantly combed American waters and brought more than eighty cap-
tured British merchantmen into American ports as prizes. But Genet's grip
on the American mind made it necessary for the President to bide his time.

Even Jefferson, who at first had been on extremely friendly terms with
Gent, soon found his arrogance insupportable. When Hammond, the
British minister, protested the ship seizures, and the Secretary of State for-
mally expressed to Gen6t the concern of the American Government, he
was sharply rebuked, in the spirit of a master scolding a stupid apprentice.
Gen6t, it was obvious, conceived of himself as the leading player in the
drama of the time a combination of Caesar and Tiberius Gracchus.
Thereafter the man who had drafted the Declaration of Independence
concealed his feelings under a mask of formality. "Whom God would de-.
stroy he first sends mad," was a quotation well known to him.

5. Hamilton* s Hidden Hand

To the far-seeing Alexander Hamilton, Cejaftf s assumption of almost "sw~
ereigii powers and his unceasing revolutioi^y agitation were by mot meam
unmixed worries* Hfc knew 1 how small a 'piii* t^kes to towstf the- fei^bbte bf
popularity in 'American politics, Oae of h

[ 98 ] SHADOW OF THE FOTtTHE 1793-1802

many in Philadelphia, reported to him that Gent was planning a particu-
larly offensive violation of Washington's ruling against privateers. The
English brig Little Sarah had been brought into port a short time before as
a French prize, and lay at anchor in the Delaware River, awaiting an Amer-
ican court's adjudication. Hamilton's information was that Gent was se-
cretly equipping the vessel as a privateer. Such an act, performed in Boston
or Savannah, might have been only another item in the rapidly growing list
of disputes between the United States and Genftt The slowness of com-
munication with other cities could explain previous failures of the govern-
ment to intervene in time to prevent the Frenchman's previous privateering
ventures. But to defy the Administration under its very nose this was
another matter. There could be no excuse except supine weakness for per-
mitting Gent to bring off this coup, which might well destroy whatever
remained of the government's prestige.

Messengers were sent to all members of the Cabinet, summoning them
to an emergency meeting. The other secretaries shared Hamilton's alarm
and, when a further report from the waterfront verified that the Little Sarah
was making ready to sail, decided that military measures were required.
Technically, however, the violation fell within the jurisdiction of the state of
Pennsylvania, and the federal government could not constitutionally take
direct action. Accordingly, the cabinet rose in a body and hurried to the
hoose of Governor Mifflin.

Like almost every one else in authority, the Governor had begun to find
Gen&t tedious, but respected his power. As a first step he dispatched an
aide to call cm the Frenchman with a courteous request to detain the ship,
and to inform him that if this were not done,, the Governor would have no
choice but to call out the state militia. GenSt reacted to this threat like a
wounded panther, with a snarl and all claws showing. Let the government
dare to call out the militia! They would see for themselves that the people
were the real sovereign of the nation. He would appeal to the people against
the President and the government! The aide, who was Pennsylvania's Sec-
retary of State Dallas, realized that Gen6t was virtually threatening to
head an insurrection and, profoundly shocked, he drove back to Mifflin.

A few minutes later, a company of the state militia was ordered to the
wharf where the Little Sarah was tied up, with instructions to use force if
necessary to prevent its sailing. Notice of this action wait to the cabinet,
again in session, and keeping the matter very much a secret. The news de-
lighted Hamilton, but disturbed Jefferson,, who recognized the dangers that
Gen^t was conjuring up, not only for the government, but for the Republi-
can party. It was essential, he felt, to prevent violence. In a last attempt
to bring Gent to his senses he took it upon himself to call at his house
and urge him to detain the ship voluntarily, until there could be a proper

PERSONA NON GRATA [ 99 ]

settlement of the dispute. Gent began a violent outburst, but suddenly
checked himself, and became quite reasonable. There had been a misunder-
standing, he assured Jefferson. True, it was intended that the vessel should
drop down the river to another anchorage, but not with the intention of
putting out to sea. This statement Jefferson chose to construe as a promise.
He notified Governor Mifflin of the changed situation, and asked him to
withdraw the militia. A few hours after this had been done, the Little Sarah
slipped down the Delaware and was off on its hunt for British prizes.

It then became Jefferson's unpleasant duty to explain matters to the Presi-
dent. Washington exploded: "Is the Minister of the French Republic to
set the acts of this government at defiance with impunity? And then
threaten the executive with an appeal to the people?" The Secretary's posi-
tion was awkward. He was only too aware of his own previous zealousness on
Genet's behalf. Himself disliking the Neutrality Proclamation as a "milk
and water document." he had given indirect encouragement to some of
Genet's propagandist efforts, including the move to persuade the Kentucki-
ans into action against Louisiana. His defense of his friend Freneau also
stood thornily between him and Washington, The time had come* he saw,
for a tactical retreat, and his expression of outrage over Genet's behavior
matched the President's. Writing to James Madison that night, Jefferson
warned him that the Republicans had to abandon Gent or be wrecked by
him.

But the imp was out of the bottle, and could not easily be put back.
The Republican press, not yet aware of the change of attitude in the high
councils of the party, seized on the Little Sarah incident, defending Gen&t,
excoriating the President, denouncing Governor Mifflin for making the
militia "tools of design and dishonor." The newspaper Aurora even hinted
that Washington was preparing to go to war against France, and Freneau
editorialized in the Gazette: "The minister of France will, I hope, act with
firmness and spirit. The people are his friends and the friends of France.
She will have nothing to apprehend, for as yet the people are the sovereign
of the United States."

The Republicans, Hamilton saw, were sitting nervously on their own
petard; all that was necessary was to touch a match to it, and let it hoist
them. This he did, using the device of the journalistic leak, already familiar
to government officials anxious to disclose confidences without responsibil-
ity. By communicating to his friends, Chief Justice John Jay and Senator
Ruftts King of New York the previously secret story of the effort to prevent
tibe Little Sarah from sailing, he made sum that within a few htitete ; Willum
Cobbett, whose violent paper set the tone for the Federalist press, would
be writing a account of Gea&s threat to appeal to the peopfe; oyef the
Psesidtektif s bead. As the aews gained cormnc^ Republfcam

[ IOO ] SHADOW OF THE FUTURE 1793-1802

lent themselves to vilification of Washington came to understand that
Gen6t, the representative of a foreign power,, had insulted and threatened
not one man merely, but the government of the United States. Here was
an issue which any but the hopelessly partisan could recognize as trans-
cending party. From this moment Genet's influence waned as former ad-
herents fell away from him, shamefaced, by the thousands.

6. "Burned-out Comef*

Gen&t for some days seemed unaware that his love affair with the Repub-
licans had ended. A shock from another quarter preoccupied his thoughts.
Word had come from Paris that not only had the power of the Girondist
party been broken under the pressure of the Jacobin radicals, but Marat had
been assassinated, Danton's star was falling fast, and the self-hypnotized
Robespierre was master of the hour and of the guillotine. For Gent this
was pure disaster, since it was the Gironde which had pushed him to prom-
inence. Promptly thereafter he received an ominous rebuke from the
National Convention's Executive Committee, which informed him that he
had never been instructed to regard himself as "the head of an American
party , . . We cannot recognize any authority in the United States beyond
that of the President and Congress." He was still trying to regain his balance
from this blow when the American Congress, reconvening, dealt him
another. Following Jefferson's lead, the Republican majority in the House
gave approval, however tepid, to the Proclamation of Neutrality and the
President's course of action.

Washington and the cabinet agreed that the moment was ripe to demand
Genet's recall, but there was still plenty of fight and impetuosity left in
the young Frenchman. When he received a copy of Jefferson's letter to
Gouverneur Morris, then American minister to France, asking him to initi-
ate the recall, Gen6t promptly demanded that Congress inquire into the
administration's motives. Publishing his instructions from the French gov-
ernment and his correspondence with Jefferson, he asked "the American
people, whose esteem is dearer to me than life," to "judge if I have been
worthy." He went even further, negotiating secretly with the headstrong
George Rogers Clark to lead an expedition against the Spanish provinces.
For this purpose, he planned to use money which the Congress had agreed
to send France as an installment on the old debt and an earnest of good
will. But here again he was thwarted by Hamilton, who had foresightedly
taken steps to keep the gold out of Genet's hands. It was only the French-
man's inability to supply adequate financial support that prevented Clark
from raising a Kentucky army for an assault on New Orleans.

Hamilton summarized the new public attitude toward Gen6t when he
called him "a burned-out comet" Nevertheless, until his immediate

PERSONA NOK GRATA [ 1O1 ]

cessor, Fauchet, arrived from Paris, the young man managed to keep con-
stantly in the news. He was greatly pleased when the French government,
while recalling him > simultaneously demanded that the President recall
Morris, whose royalist sympathies had led him also into meddling with the
internal policies of his host country.

To the end, Gent carried himself with an air. He had thrown away his
country's unique chance to win America to her revolutionary side; but he
was still pleased with himself. He did not even appear greatly concerned
about deportation to France, where Robespierre's guillotine almost certainly
awaited him, Washington, however, had no desire to make a martyr of the
young man, and Genet retreated from Philadelphia only as far as New
York. There he was made much of by Republican society, for was he not
famous, animated, and single? In time,, he married the daughter of Governor
Clinton, and settled down to domesticity after so much grandiloquence,
a tame ending.

CHAPTER TWO

The Successful Man

i. The HamUtonian Style

A significant contrast to Genfit's conduct was provided by England's min-
ister, Hammond. Unfailingly cautious and correct, he stayed out of the pub-
lic eyc^ and put his faith in Hamilton. It was a faith well placed. Hamilton
not only prevented Gent from financing Clark's march on Louisiana and
made maximum political capital out of the Little Sarah affair to England's
benefit, but he greatly strengthened Hammond in official disputes, and
openly defended the British position against Jefferson's thrusts. In his dis-
patches to Grenville, Hammond always referred to Hamilton as his "con-
fidential quarter" "I learn from a confidential quarter" and he was often
able to give the Foreign Office information known nowhere else except in
Washington's cabinet

The English minister regarded Hamilton with profound respect, for there
was an aura of infallibility about him. This was before the period of his
amorous scandals, and the handsome, articulate, easy-mannered man had
the great world at his feet. No matter what enterprise he engaged in, he
seemed to succeed. It had been so all his thirty-five years as a student in
King's College, as an officer on Washington's staff during the war, as a
lawyer in New York, as a member of the Continental Congress, as coauthor
with Madison and Jay of the Federalist Papers, as leader of the Federalist
party, and now as Secretary of the Treasury, with authority second only to
that of Washington himself, and with influence second to none. Even the
Odysseus-like Jefferson, with his thousand skills* seemed unable to stand
against him. Hamilton's victory in the Gent affair had given him a distinct
advantage in their historic contest for power to shape the American destiny.
Chance had favored him then, and it continued to help him extract success
from apparently hopeless situations until the withdrawal from public life
of the greater man, Washington, to whom he had linked his destiny. There-
after nothing went right for him. It was as if Washington had been his
guardian angel, or perhaps a father-divinity, to win whose approbation the
younger man felt impelled to live and work at his top level of performance.
Without Washington, the incentive to greatness was somehow lost. He who
had been the star-blessed became suddenly the star-crossed. Hamilton's
judgment faltered, his political enterprises failed, his business speculations
went awry, his adultery became a public issue, his name was tarnished by

THE SUCCESSFUL MAN [ 103 ]

hints of corruption, and in the end he allowed himself to be seduced into
his grotesque and fatal duel with Aaron Burr. But while he served Washing-
ton, Hamilton seemed to have the gift of transmuting every disaster into
triumph. Again and again his alert and vigorous response to chance pre-
vented his policy from foundering at moments of crisis.

His feeling for the right moment was never more clearly revealed than
in connection with the notorious Order in Council issued by the British
government on June 8, 1793, authorizing British warships to seize American
vessels carrying grain to France and her colonies. The story of this order^
as uncovered by S. F. Bemis in his remarkable study, Jay's Treaty, and as
traced through other sources, indicates how featly Hamilton walked the
unstable tightrope of public opinion. Preliminary and secret notice of the
order was dispatched by Grenville early in June, and reached Hammond
in July. Simultaneously, the British Admiralty sent instructions to squadrons
of the fleet then operating in the West Indies. The intention was to disclose
the existence of the order to the American government only after the initial
ship seizures had been made.

Hammond feared that if news of the order came to America as a com-
plete surprise, the resulting sense of outrage and shock might be enough to
push the nation into war. He felt that he needed Hamilton's advice, but
at first he dared not take the risk of sharing the dangerous secret even with
so good a friend of England. On the other hand, it was obvious that failure
to give Hamilton preliminary warning might create a serious breach between
them* and remove the "confidential quarter" on which he and England's
position in America so largely depended. When, in early August, Hamilton
confided to him, with much satisfaction, that Genet's recall was about to
be demanded, Hammond felt that he could no longer safely defer speaking
of the order. It was his hope, he told Hamilton anxiously, that the American
public would not gain a "wrong impression" of England's policy.

The information shook the usually unemotional Hamilton. The order,
he said was "harsh" and "unprecedented/' and he warned that the Ameri-
can government would react strongly. But his fundamental position was in
no way altered. Immediately he sought ways to prevent the inevitable blast
of anti-British feeling from getting out of control. Could Hammond, he
asked, provide him with an exposition of the order which he could use in
the Cabinet to meet the attack which was to be expected?

Hamilton's was not a mind to overlook the likelihood that the British
would move first and inform his government late. Nevertheless he ?ai<|
notiW^g <rf the older to the Cabinet, and no warning w$s given to
ships then nboiit to safl for the West Indie* The core of Ms politics
the, cporidiop that IB fee long tpt wbottfift good, for England was-
for fa ;fJiiite<! &ftto& lit ym> fusible fcr'Iiim to jsesjpefctl Hapmoac? s .

[ 104] SHADOW OF THE FUTURE 1793-1802

fidence without serious misgivings as to his own loyalty, for the damage
had been done, the order was an accomplished fact. From his standpoint
as a statesman the fate of a few, or even a good many merchant ships was
less important than the prevention of war; from his standpoint as a
politician, there was every reason to delay public knowledge of the new
trouble until the affair of the Little Sarah had been fully exploited by the
Federalists, and Republican prestige further deflated. It was not until August
24, when Hammond sent Jefferson an official notification of the Order in
Council, that the American government officially learned the alarming facts.

x "Rule, Britannia"

Grenville's scheme in persuading Pitt to issue the June Order in Council
was aimed primarily at cutting off American shipments of wheat to France's
undersupplied and restive West Indian colonies, long coveted by England.
He did not, however, lose sight of the fact that the seized cargoes and ships
would be of considerable benefit to British military forces and colonists in
the islands. A color of legality was needed for the move. It was found in a
long dormant British policy which England had used a generation earlier
to discourage Dutch merchants from trading with France during the Seven
Years' War. Its essence was that in time of war a neutral would not be per-
mitted to trade with a belligerent unless the trade route in question had
previously been open to the neutral's ships carrying similar cargoes. Known
as the Rule of 1756^ this arbitrary policy was based wholly on the power of
the British navy to exact compliance. As the British saw it, the rule barred
American exports of grain to the French West Indian colonies, where the
grain trade had formerly been a monopoly of France.

While the order proposed merely to "detain" any neutral vessels seized,
to purchase their cargoes and to pay freight and demurrage to their owners,
no one could doubt that these pledges would mean only so much as the
British Admiralty chose to make them mean. At the very moment when dis-
mayed merchants in Philadelphia and New York were reading the order,
England's warship were at work rounding up scores of American ships in
West Indian waters and sending them to British ports as prizes. A few days
later, when word of the seizures was brought to the mainland, a wave of
fury swept the country, and the fact that most of these ships were of small
tonnage did not lessen the shock. But Hamilton was prepared. At once he
proposed to the Cabinet that a sharp protest be made to London, through
diplomatic channels. Jefferson thought mere protest inadequate, and wished
to ask Congress to sanction measures which would sequester all British
ships then in American ports, and exclude further British imports uptil the
Order in Council should be rescinded. But when Washington sided ^ith
Hamilton, the Cabinet contented itself by sending a strongly woirded dis-

THE SUCCESSFUL MAN [ 1OJ ]

patch by fast boat to the American minister in London, General Thomas
Pinckney.

The resulting conversation between Pinckney and Grenville fully exposed
the British point of view. Pinckney began by expressing his country's deep
concern over the situation. Feeling in America was especially intense be-
cause of the high-handed and arbitrary nature of the British action. The
Rule of 1756 had no valid basis in law. He quoted a counterrale pro-
mulgated by Frederick the Great, holding that "the goods of an enemy
cannot be taken from on board the ships of a friend/' and a former British
commercial arrangement with the Dutch, which stated that "free ships make
free goods."

Grenville's polite reply was that many a famous European legal authority
Vattel, Grotius,, Puffendorf could be cited to justify the British position.
With great earnestness, he said as how many heads of state have said since
that this war was different from other wars, and so imposed different
requirements on neutrals as well as on belligerents. A French victory, he
warned, would endanger America, ocean or no ocean. The enemy had
"armed almost the whole laboring classes of the French nation" for war
against Europe. Was England to stand inert while a country with nearly
three times her population mobilized on so unprecedented a scale? France's
aim was plainly to subvert the established order of society everywhere.
French secret agents had attempted to foment rebellion in England against
the Crown. In dealing with so ruthless, cruel, and anarchic a power, the
British were entitled to use every means available to them.

As an American officer who had fought against Tarleton's raiders during
the Revolutionary War, Pinckney knew something of ruthlessness and
cruelty, and that these characteristics were not limited to any one people.
He was aware, too, that the French Republic's vast military effort had been
stimulated by enemy invasion and by the counter-revolutionary activities of
aristocratic emigres, aided by England and the German states. Nevertheless
he could understand the British feding. Under the ambitious leadership of
Robespierre^ the French had begun to assert an almost religious mission to
give revolution and liberty to the world. A kind of republican-international
was taking shape, and other nations were staggered by the impact of
French ideas on their tradesmen and urban laborers.

As usual, the statesmen of the established governments failed to compre-
hend the po^er of the energies released by popular revolution, A new aaad
terrifying kiad of war kxnqed ahead. When the old moTOiokies fastd fotifjbt,
statesmen regarded war almost as a game, in wfaldb the sjcle ac^imuktimg
eaough cou&tei>~ victories of its armly and navy ^otdd win certain terri-
tory or oomtaefcM beaeits. Tie aim was not unconditional .swipidcr ty
the- enemy, biit'ai^mtag^0.iis'e^piBnri5e; { 'not the^ov^il^f''! gown-

[ 106 ] SHADOW OF THE FOTOTE 1793-1802

ments, but readjustment in their relative power. This conventional and com-
fortable scheme of war was now shattered. From the moment that French
conscripts, shouting the "Marseillaise," beat the professional troops of Aus-
tria and Prussia,, the doctrine of total war was in tie air, although the phrase
would not be invented by Clausewitz for another few years. And the French
had gone even farther than universal conscription; they had begun to pro-
duce improved and standardized rifles, artillery, and ammunition, permitting
relatively rapid reloading. Their troops consequently had a significant advan-
tage in firing power. Concealed from public view by the flamboyant Robes-
pierre, the far abler Lazar Camot was organizing an army such as Europe
had never before seen, and which in a few years would provide Napoleon
Bonaparte with the essential tool of victory.

Pinckney was aware that England's entire strategic and commercial
position on the continent was endangered. It was only natural that her
resentment should pour in a torrent from press and pulpit, that fear of the
Revolution should spread from the aristocracy into all classes, until the
nation which only a few years earlier had sympathized with the French
people in their revolt against feudal miseries came to regard them as mur-
derous monsters. Noble blood had spurted under the executioner's ax on
many a British scaffold, but there seemed something horrible and obscene
in the mechanical efficiency of the guillotine and the scale of its exactions.
GrenviDe's omviction that nothing could be allowed to interfere with the
overthrow of the "guillotine republic" had become the sentiment of the
British people.

The Foreign Minister conveyed to Pinckney that if his policy bore hard
on neutrals* the fault lay in their neutrality. While he did not use the word
"crusade" he made it clear that to crush the French republicans was a moral
obligation on all right-thinking nations. It was no use, Pinckney saw, to
debate either the legality or the morality of the Rule of 1756 with the
Foreign Secretary; so he turned to the practical side of the issue. If the sole
propose of the British Government was to bring republican France to her
knees, he asked, then how could the controversial order be justified? It was
evident that the French people would not starve for lack of American grain.
Wheat in France was far more abundant and cheaper than in England.
Obviously the target of the order was not France, but the French West
Indies, one of America's major markets, and no military threat to England.
This being so, it was only fair and reasonable to expect the prompt release
of the seized American ships and sailors, with proper indemnity^ yet the
British courts of admiralty had made no real effort to dispose of the cases
brought before them by the injured American shipowners.

There the matter stood. Maintaining his pleasant demeapor, the haid-
headed British minister fell back on diplomatic generalities^ and Plnckney

THE SUCCESSFUL MAN [ 107 ]

knew that his oral protest would be ignored. Behind Grenville's attitude
was the conviction that America was neither able nor willing to fight for her
neutral rights. Pinckney said as much in the discouraged report that he sent
off to Philadelphia.

3. Jefferson Resigns

The next move was up to Jefferson. Using temperate language, he com-
posed a formal note which Pinckney was to deliver to Grenville, and which
detailed the illegality and inconsistencies of the British order. If it was not
neutral to export foodstuffs to the French possessions, was it neutral to
export them to England? The Order in Council, said Jefferson, threatened
the prosperity of American agriculture, and he warned that it might mean
the end of American neutrality.

All this was for the record. He had no hope of achieving a result from
words alone,, so long as Washington continued to back Hamilton's passive
attitude in the face of British provocation. Jefferson suspected, too, that
Hamilton kept Hammond continuously informed of the confidential deci-
sions of the cabinet. Under these conditions, no change in British policy
was to be expected. Diplomatically, the United States had been put in a
hopeless tactical position, with no power either to persuade or coerce, and
for this Jefferson put the blame squarely on Hamilton.

He was especially irritated by Hamilton's repeated implications that the
Republicans sought a war with England. While this was true of a strong
segment of the party, the ranking Republican leaders, Jefferson and Madi-
son,, saw war only as a last and desperate recourse. War implied debt, heavy
taxation, centralization of power in the Executive, large armaments, a big
navy, threats to civil liberty, suspension of constitutional rights in a word,
disaster to the democracy to which Jefferson had pledged his life. He be-
lieved that war was unnecessary that commercial retaliation would be
enough to protect America against any power which aggressed against her
trade. Over and over he repeated this* and he wrote it into a comprehensive
report which he submitted to the Congress. But still Hamilton persisted in
spreading the rumor that the Secretary of State was advocating war with
England. And this' was not mere politicking on Hamilton's part. He was
genuinely convinced that, confronted by such economic reprisals as Jefferson
was promoting* the British would declare war,

The enmity between these two brilliant partisans was a sowce of constant
wony to Washington, and more tjbam once he attempted a rea^cfliatoa.
But their npdmds were too clouded by political passioas, apd th$y w^* too
far apart IB tyelief to permit icowpromi&e. The President' s ef ocfs merely
intensified their dislike fen: each otter. Tot Jteffeoii it

eg standing abow p#tyy ,wps, rt tort;

[ 108 ] SHADOW OF THE FUTURE 1793-1802

In Hamilton's camp, and was being used by him. Late in 1793, feeling that
he could no longer accept the Cabinet's policy, he determined to resign his
post, and work with his party to drive through Congress the anti-British
economic legislation that he wanted. It was only with great reluctance that
Washington agreed to let him go, for he disliked the political implications
of the resignation, and was unwilling to lose Jefferson's talents. Whatever
their disagreements, greatness called to greatness when they met.

4. ". . . War . . . Inevitable . . "

Pinckney in London was as disturbed as Jefferson, and lonelier. In
November 1793, he wrote that England's attitude "seems to render our
taking part in the war . . . inevitable," and began to plan his departure for
France. Nevertheless, when he received Jefferson's written protest on the
Rule of 1756, he dutifully presented it to Grenville, and the Foreign Secre-
tary acknowledged it in correct terms. Pinckney had no way of knowing
that the note was already too far behind the march of events to have any
significance. The British government was about to issue a new Order in
Council yet more drastic than the last. Dispensing even with the appear-
ance of legality, going far beyond the Rule of 1756, it directed British
naval commanders to stop and detain all ships trafficking with the French
colonies, regardless of whether or not such trade had been permitted before.
In effect, the new order interdicted all American commerce with the
French West Indies, and not only in grain, but in lumber, fish, leather,
sug^r, and the like.

As before, Grenville was not content merely to announce this measure; he
timed its release in the way most injurious to America, signing it early in
November, but not making it public until special squadrons of the fleet,
sailing from England, could reach West Indkn waters. Then > with warships
poised for action, Grenville at last told Hammond to notify the new Amer-
ican Secretary of State> Edmund RandolphABy the time the Cabinet heard
the news* calamity had already overtaken the country's merchant marine.
% Two hundred and fifty American cargo ships were plying their routes in or
near tihe West Indies when the British cruisers bore down on them, and
seized them without reference to cargoes or destinations. The American
tag on a masthead was enough to cause any vessel sighted by the British
to be taken to one of their own island ports, where cargoes were unloaded,
and sailors flung into foul and fever-ridden prison ships, or impressed
into tibe abominated service of the British Navy/ Local admiralty courts did
as they wished with ships, cargoes, captains, and crews. The only redress
of the American owner of a seized ship was to engage in long and costly
litigation before a high court of admiralty in England.

Accounts of these events, trickling into American ports early in the new

THE SUCCESSFUL MAN [ 109 ]

year, evoked an anti-British outburst which surpassed even the demonstra-
tions for Gen6t. Newspapers denounced the British action as piracy on a
national scale. Even Hamilton, called to express an opinion,, denounced it
as "atrocious." Many Federalists who had stood staunchly by England now
cursed her as well as France. In southern cities crowds rioted, and hundreds
of young men volunteered for the Army, while patriotic songs of venge-
ance to come rose in taverns throughout the land. A popular actor who
appeared on a stage in a Philadelphia theater wearing a British uniform
was booed and threatened with violence until he shouted to the audience
that he was playing the part of a coward and a bully, whereupon he was
cheered. In the face of this hysteria, Jefferson advised Madison, who was
then leader of the Republicans in the House, to proceed with care. "I should
hope that Congress," he said* "instead of a declaration of war, would in-
stantly exclude from our ports all the manufactures, produce, vessels and
subjects" of England until full satisfaction was forthcoming. It would harm
the country less, he felt, to be impoverished by the diminution of trade,
than to be made party to the European war. And although provocations
multiplied, he continued to stand firm on this ground. When Algeria struck
heavily at American ships in the Mediterranean, he wrote to his daughter,
"The letting loose of the Algerines [sic] upon us, which has been contrived
by England, has produced a peculiar irritation. I think Congress will in-
demnify themselves by high duties on all articles of British manufacture."
When it came out that Lord Dorchester, the Governor of Canada, had told
the Indian tribes that war was imminent, and they would soon recover their
lands from the Americans, Jefferson still continued to urge only economic
steps, until many bellicose Republicans became disgusted with what they
considered his too great caution.

5. Hamilton Ascendant

A great part of Jefferson's reluctance to see the country go to war stemmed
from fear of the large military powers assigned by the Constitution to the
Executive. The simple core of his belief was a hatred of tyranny,, political,
economic, religious. Unlike Hamilton, who was a long-range planner, he
was never willing to mortgage the present to a distant future. Intensely
conscious of the unpredictability of politics, he could conceive of no
distant reward that would justify the American people in waiving their
democratic powers, for in history the future had too often proved to be
the secret partner of the tyrant. Jefferson was a iwoltitiomiy, fa the
sense that fee believed that violence was justified when reasonable talc
could not free men from harsh oppression^ but he could meter have
been a Robespierrist in 1793 any more thaa^ he coulct Have beeii a Statist
in 1953, for in botfe instances lie ^ould have haef W support cSctatdr-

[lio] SHADOW OF THE FTJTUEE 1793-1802

ship and terrorism. During his mission to France he had warned friends
among the Jacobins against excesses that were leading them away from
democracy. The essence of democracy, in his mind, was limitation of
the powers of the Executive. That is why he feared Hamilton, who wanted
to make the Presidency more powerful than the Congress and the judiciary.
Hamilton's Federalism, as Jefferson saw it, was a steppingstone to tyranny.

Conversely, Jefferson's enthusiasm for the common man seemed to
Hamilton a sort of greasy sentimentality, which, if it were translated into
policy, promised only anarchy. Both staunchly defended personal liberty,
but the Virginian meant a reasonable degree of liberty for everybody,, and
the New Yorker a great deal of liberty for men of wealth and breeding.
Neither was quite fair to the other. Jefferson thought Hamilton a hypocrite
because he claimed to oppose monarchy while advocating a form of govern-
ment monarchical in everything but name. Hamilton considered Jefferson
a demagogue because, in order to maintain his partisan position, he was
willing to see his country entrapped in a disastrous war with England. Yet,
in the end, these two large spirits would prove that they were not, after all,
so far apart as they had thought. When crisis tested them, Hamilton kept
the nation true to its constitutional principles, while Jefferson kept the
nation at peace. They were like rival stars exerting gravitational pull on the
solar system. The very diversity of their ideas proved to be a stabilizing
influence for the nation as a whole. Each needed the other to get the best
out of himself^ and to serve his country to the full

Of Washington's personal integrity Jefferson had no doubts, but he be-
lieved the President to be so widely misled by Hamilton and the right-wing
Federalists that he might be used as their tool in moves directed against the
liberties of the people. On the one hand the Federalists were determined on
no account to go to war with England; on the other they persistently asked
Congress for large appropriations for an army and navy. This eagerness
for arms, in Jefferson's opinion, could not entirely be accounted for by the
commercial pressure of would-be military suppliers. He suspected a Federalist
scheme to fight France while imposing dictatorship. Guns in the hands of
an army under Hamiltonian leadership, he believed, would mean the end
of the Republic,

In March 1794, one of Hamilton's disciples, Theodore Sedgwick, intro-
duced bills in the House calling for a provisional army of fifteen thousand
men, and giving the President power to lay a thirty-day embargo at his
discretion on the vessels of any belligerent A large mumper of Republican
representatives saw no reason why they should not support this measure,
which they assumed was directed against England, But James Madison,
following Jefferson's line, warned that Hamilton was up to Ms "old; trick of
turning every contingency into a resource for accumulating force in the

THE SUCCESSFUL MAN [ 111 ]

government," and the House voted down the Sedgwick bills. Instead, and
to Jefferson's satisfaction, Congress instructed the President to impose a
thirty-day embargo on all shipping in American ports bound for foreign
destinations, denying him discretion in the matter.

Even when rebellion broke out in western Pennsylvania, when seven
thousand determined citizens took up rifles to protest Hamilton's unpopular
excise tax on whisky,, and government revenue agents were tarred and
feathered, Jefferson counseled against the use of force to suppress the trouble.
Others agreed with him, if for different reasons. Governor Mifflin of Penn-
sylvania feared that the militia, if put into the field, would join the in-
surgents. Secretary of State Randolph thought it folly for a country so beset
from abroad as the United States to use guns on its own people for the
sake of a tax. "A calm survey of the situation," he declared, " . . . banishes
every idea of calling the militia." But here Hamilton had his way. He was
far ahead of his time in understanding the importance of preserving the
tax structure and revenues of the nation, of maintaining orderly processes
of administration, and of protecting government servants in the perform-
ance of their duties. "Shall the majority govern or be governed?" he asked
unanswerably. ". . . Shall the general will prevail or the will of a faction?
Shall there be government or no government?" He is also alleged to have
declared in a cabinet meeting that "a government can never be said to be
established until some signal display has manifested its power of military
coercion."

The turn of events showed him strong, sound, and wise. Congress was
not in session and Washington did not wait. He called out the militia of
several states and put them into the field. A few shots were fired, the rebel-
lion swiftly disintegrated, and the American people, realizing for the first
time that the government was disposed and able to enforce its laws, felt
the nervous elation of a child who knows that he deserves a spanking, and
gets it. Jefferson criticized the President for "declaring a civil war" while
"being so patient at the scoffs and kicks of our enemies," but it was apparent
to the country that he and the Republicans had been seriously set back.

There was in Hamilton's general political position a financial logic that
defied all challenge. His opposition to economic reprisals against England,
for example, was based on arithmetic so simple that any backwoods Con-
gressman could follow it. British goods constituted 90 per cent of the coun-
try's imports, and provided a great share of the government's revenue from
customs duties and taxes. Repeatedly Hamilton reminded the cotintiy that
exclusion of British imports would not merely incite England tp war; it
would shatter the government's financial structure, plumge it into debt, and
stifie its extoitiw branch. Jdfesom, to jApm ideology was moae* important
than finance*, believed tjiai? Ei^glanid's aavy would b$ too pueoocwpiei with

[ill] SHADOW OF THE FUTURE 1793-1802

the war against France to attack the United States, and that in the long
ran the internal economy would provide the necessary tax funds. This
Hamilton considered naive and dangerous folly. He was accused of playing
into Britain's hands, and there is no doubt that he did, but it was in the
sincere conviction that he was protecting America's future.

For a time, In the early months of 1794, the embargo advocates almost
had their way. All Hamilton's hopes seemed about to be crushed under the
weight of the bad news incessantly coming from England. Pinckney re-
ported that Grenville had not yielded one comma of the Orders in Council,
and had refused to review the problem of the western posts. Friction on the
Canadian border worsened as Lord Dorchester continued to excite the
tribes with promises of war. Under pressure from wrathful newspapers,
Congress extended its embargo on exports to the belligerent nations for
another month. It took all of Washington's influence, exerted at Hamilton's
urging, to restrain the House from enacting legislation which would openly
discriminate against British imports.

Then, as usual, the unforeseen came to Hamilton's rescue, in the shape
of a new French policy. Genet's successor, Fauchet, had become intimate
with Secretary of State Randolph (a friendship which was finally to wreck
Randolph's career) and accepting his narrowly Republican view of events,
had given the French government a serious misconception of the trend of
the partisan struggle in the Congress. In Paris, the Neutrality Proclamation,
the embargo, which affected France as well as England,, Jefferson's resig-
nation, and the long patience of Washington in the face of the British ship
seizures were taken to signify growing hostility toward the French Republic,
and as meriting retaliation. The British had set an example of what could
be done, safely and profitably, to vessels flying the American flag. Without
warning, French cruisers began to prowl the Atlantic trade routes, capturing
bmcfcecls of American ships and cargoes bound for England; and their
crews were treated with no less brutality than had been employed by the
British navy.

Bese was Justification for Hamilton, and a bitter piH for Jefferson. Public
opinion in the United States was confronted by proof tibat the French were
as inimical as the British and who would be so foolhardy as to suggest that
America figbt both?

6. Touch and Go

Unexpectedly, America's intolerable situation was somewhat eased by
events on the European continent. A succession of French military suc-
cesses set Prussia, Austria, and Holland to thinking and talking of peace
with Fiance. With the continental coalition showing signs of itaniiieiit
collapse, England faced the prospect of fighting a long and dangeEOts war

THE SUCCESSFXJL MAN

single-handed; and it was evident to Pitt that this was no time to drive
America into France's arms, or to antagonize the British taxpayer by adding
another war to his burdens. Nor, at a time when the treasury needed every
pound which British exports could bring in, was it sensible to relinquish the
profitable American market. Without delay, he issued a new and modified
Order in Council,, superseding those which had caused the trouble. America
would now be permitted to trade in non-contraband goods with the West
Indies. More, the British government would pay for seized cargoes im-
properly confiscated. About the same time, Hammond let it be known that
the incendiary speeches made by Lord Dorchester and his aides to the
Indians had not had the sanction of his government, and that Dorchester
had gone back to England.

This little burst of appeasement gave a momentary lift to American
spirits. The Republicans, including Jefferson, mistakenly saw in it a triumph
for the policy of embargo an error which would have very large conse-
quences ten years later. Hamilton, however, was aware that the new order
was no more than a diplomatic tactic concocted to meet an unexpected
crisis, and in no way indicated a change in the essential British attitude.
From his standpoint, the chief merit of the gesture by London was that it
made some doubtful senators and representatives draw back from Jefferson,
who was now demanding an act forbidding all commerce with England.

There was great danger, Hamilton realized, that at any time some new
provocation might be forthcoming which would swing the scales of Con-
gress irretrievably against England. A new and bold strategy was needed if
the policy of neutrality was to survive. One of Hamilton's chief supporters,
the wealthy, ultraconservative, and highly competent senator from Massa-
chusetts, George Cabot* took the initiative. Meeting with two equally im-
portant colleagues, Rufus King of New York and Oliver Ellsworth of
Connecticut, he proposed that the President send a personal representative
to London. Since Pinckney had been unable to make progress, let this
special envoy negotiate with Grenville on all the points in dispute between
the two nations. Only the sanction of the Federalist Senate and not that of
the Republican House would be required, so that if the right man could be
found, the enterprise would be approved. In that event the House might
be persuaded to withhold economic sanctions against England until the
outcome of the mission was known.

A good deal more than prevention of war was in the minds of the three
powerful senators. In some ways, their feelings were similar to those of
American isolationists just prior to World War II. The conservatives of 1940
feared that war with Germany, by linking America with Russia^ would in-
vite communism. The Federalists of 1794 feared that war wife England
would sand the United States dowti the path of irevolutioplary Fcatice. The

[114] SHADOW OF THE FUTURE 1793-1802

upper-class mood in both periods was expressed by John Marshall, when
he later wrote: "That war with Britain , . . would throw America so com-
pletely into the arms of France as to leave her no longer mistress of her own
conduct was not the only fear . . . That the spirit which triumphed in that
nation. . .might cross the Atlantic and desolate the hitherto safe and peace-
ful dwellings of the American people was an apprehension not . . . entirely
unsupported by appearances . . ." The mission to England was conceived
by Cabot, King, and Ellsworth partly as a means to put England on notice
that her provocative policy, by playing into the hands of the American
radicals, invited social upheaval on the French model.

Word of the senators* meeting soon leaked out, and it became known
that Hamilton was their preference for the task. It is doubtful, however,
that men so shrewd and experienced as these seriously expected that the
controversial Secretary would consent to go > or that if he did go, the House
would co-operate to give him a chance of success. The suggestion of his
name was more likely to have been a device to divert Republican attention
away from the conception of the mission itself, by focusing opposition on
the choice of the man. Meanwhile Hamilton had persuaded Washington
that John Jay was the ideal man for the purpose, and together with Cabot
and King,, had brought great pressure on the Chief Justice to accept

In considering the personal significance of Jay's response, it must be taken
into account that he was considered, at that time, to have an excellent
chance of supplanting John Adams as Washington's successor in the
presidency, and the task which he was being asked to undertake was full of
obvious danger to his political future. His initial reluctance gave way, how-
ever,, as he considered the country's need, his party's plight, and the extraor-
dinary opportunity to make histoiy. He would accept, he said finally, if
tibte anti-British bills sponsored by the Republicans and then pending in
the Congress could be pigeonholed, since if enacted they would wreck the
enterprise before it was begun. In a letter to his wife he explained his
position: "The public considerations which were urged . . . strongly im-
pressed me with a conviction that to refuse it would be to desert my duty
for the sake of my ease . . ." There is ho reason to doubt that he was writing
from the heart.

As soon as Jay's consent was in hand, Hamilton quietly withdrew his
name from consideration for the London mission, and the President sent
Jay's nomination to the Senate. The debate was relatively brief. Eight
senators were opposed on the ground that Jay had shown himself too
favorably disposed toward England, but the other eighteen voted for him,
and on May 12, 1794^ he sailed. A warning from Washington to the House
that it was of the utmost importance to defer legislation aimed at economic
reprisals against England was received with grumbling, but it was heeded

THE SUCCESSFUL MAN [ 115 ]

Once again, time had worked for Hamilton. A few days later, shocking
news came from the west news which could easily have destroyed his
strategy if it had come before Jay's departure. The deputy governor of
Lower Canada, John Simcoe, acting in the absence of the indiscreet Lord
Dorchester, had virtually declared war on the United States by sending
British troops thirty miles southwest of Detroit to build and garrison a new
fort in the heart of Miami Indian country territory unmistakably American
under the Treaty of 1783. Simcoe was a man with a pathological hatred of
America, an inflated conception of his own importance and a fixed belief
that the United States was planning an assault on the British-held western
posts. A short time before, Congress had voted an army of five thousand
men for the West, and Washington had appointed General Anthony Wayne
to command it against Little Turtle's Indians. Such a force, Simcoe held,
was excessive for a punitive expedition against the tribes, and could only
presage war on Canada, On this assumption, he felt it necessary to prepare
new defenses for Detroit, regardless of treaty stipulations and the effect on
American opinion; and by distorting facts he managed to persuade Dor-
chester and Grenville of the essentiality of the new Miami fort.

This was a hard knock for Congress and the people to take without strik-
ing back. But with Jay en route to England* the President was able to still
the clamor for immediate war. Angry senators were made to understand
that regardless of the outcome of Jay's mission, an attack on Simcoe's new
fort would for some time be out of the question, since General Wayne was
still recruiting and drilling his army. Thus, in the precarious summer of
1794, the Hamiltonian policy still stood intactj there was still a chance of
peace with England.

CHAFTER THREE

"Tliis Damned Treaty*'

i. As Only the British Know How

To Lord Grenville, the American negotiation was of secondary importance.
Realizing that England, with a comparatively small population, had to rely
heavily on the armies of allies while concentrating her own efforts on control
of the sea, he was then immersed in a complex of subsidies* bribes, and
secret treaties by which he hoped to keep Prussian and Austrian troops
waging his country's continental battles with the French. The Viennese who
first said "England expects every Austrian to do his duty" was quite right.
For England, the conservation of manpower for the final battle was the
strategy of survival. Grenville, more than any other, was responsible for the
policy which wore down the armies of France for years before any con-
siderable body of British troops was risked in the fighting.

His interest in a possible treaty with the United States grew primarily
out of his desire to reduce, if he could not altogether prevent, American
trade with the French, and so weaken the devil across the Channel. Did the
United States want peace badly enough to consent to British maritime rules
designed for this purpose? If not, then a transatlantic war would have to be
added to England's burden. But although this was the essence of his
American policy^ it was by no means all of it. Like every statesman worth his
saltv he knew better than to be negligent of weeds anywhere in his diplo-
matic garden. The spores of trouble traveled the winds, and were fertile;
danger ignored in America could crop up multiplied in Europe or India.
War with America would not necessarily be a disaster for England, but it
was to be avoided if possible.

For this reason, the selection of John Jay as the American negotiator
seemed to Grenville a good omen. Jay was a conservative by nature, an
Aiiglopfaile, a member of Hamilton's inner circle, and a New Yorker, linked
by tradition and interest to the merchants of the American North,, rather
than to the planters of the South. As a lawyer and an experienced states-
man, he was not inclined to stand on abstract doctrines, but to work for
practical compromises.

All this was good, but there were in Grenvflle*s dossier on Jay indications
even more hopeful. A personal description of Jay by a British agent who
had known him gave him credit for good sense, patience, a long memory,
and skill in argument, but went on to describe him as Iqng-wiiided,

"THIS DAMNED TREATY" [117]

opinionated, and above all, vain. "He can bear any opposition to what he
advocates provided regard is shown to his ability. He may be attached by
good treatment but will be unforgiving if he thinks himself neglected/*
Here was a clue that Grenville could follow. This was no Adams, with his
Puritan stubbornness, no Pinckney, with his soldierly obedience to in-
structions. Grenville conferred with Pitt, and made his plans.

No American had ever received from the British so heart-warming a
reception as that given Jay. With the perfection of style for which British
diplomacy was and is justly famous, his hosts whisked him into a world
of which he had read and dreameda world where aristocracy, talent, and
elegance sat all around him. A glittering dinner at Lord Grenville's on the
night following his arrival introduced him to the British Cabinet. A few
days later Pitt himself entertained him. Invitations from the great houses
poured in on him. He was taken to the bosom of British society, and
coddled, and flattered. The intellects of England made much of him.
Edmund Burke and Jeremy Bentham sought him out. Lord Chancellor
Loughborough sent him a brace of grouse. The Bishop of London preached
a sermon for him. Royalty itself joined in the game. Not only the King,
but Queen Charlotte graciously received Jay; and she extended her hand to
him, and he bowed, and kissed it. Word of that kiss was to go to the United
States, and explode in the Republican press. "Men of America, he betrayed
you with a kissl" But Jay, in the summer of 1794, was indifferent to public
opinion back home. How could provincial Americans be expected to under-
stand the formal etiquette of the great world? His was the elation of a man
who has at last come into his own. The aristocratic philosophy of politics,
which he was later to express in a sentence: 'Those who own the country
ought to govern it," was irresistibly attractive to him. As the official
negotiations beg^n, he found himself sitting with men with whom he had
drank toasts of friendship the night before, men who did not conceal their
admiration and respect for him. If he remembered the intensely patriotic
John Jay of twelve years earlier, suspicious of every foreigner, he must have
thought of him patronizingly as a manifestation of youthful nafvetd.

Although he had been given some discretionary powers, his instructions
were definite. He was to settle to America's satisfaction the conflicts arising
out of the Treaty of 1783 especially the matters of the western posts and
the slave seizures. He was to require England to make suitable compensation
for her depredations under the Orders in Council, and to dfcsist from further
interference with American ships on their lawful occasions. If possible, lie
was to persuade the British to open their West Indian possessions to Aita>
lean merchants. In any event, he was to agree to nothing contrary to
America's engagements with France. Jay must have been well ^waie that
neither the President nor Hamilton expected HHI to iol^w these ^

[ll8] SHADOW OF THE FUTURE 1793-1802

tions to the letter, or even to the paragraph. In order to allay Jeffersonian
fears, Edmund Randolph had been allowed a large hand in writing them;
they represented one of Hamilton's subtlest deceptions. It was only because
Randolph believed his instructions to be binding and so informed the
French government that Jay was able to complete his mission without
intervention by France.

To begin, Grenville seemed all courtesy and conciliation. He had no
hesitation in saying that Lord Dorchester, in his incendiaiy speeches to the
Indians, had overstepped his authority. It was not true, as his lordship had
conveyed, that England intended to make war on the United States after
defeating France. Dorchester, then in London, would be reprimanded. As
to the situation created by Simcoe's action in establishing Fort Miami, it
would be necessary to await reports of General Wayne's campaign against
the Indians before taking action. If Wayne did not force war upon England
by attacking British troops, it was possible that the western posts would be
soon surrendered provided, of course,, that other elements of dispute could
be settled.

This was a hopeful note. Jay was able to assure Grenville that the orders
given Wayne by President Washington explicitly confined him to the sub-
jugation of the warring Indians. No attack on the British, even on Fort
Miami, was to be undertaken. Knowing Wayne's reputation for impetuous
derring-do, however, Jay was by no means confident that a Canadian war
would not blaze up while he was sparring with the British. He suggested
to Grenville that they should at first avoid written communications, and
talk informally "until there should appear a probability of coming to some
amicable mutual understanding, 7 * since this was not a trial of diplomatic
skill, but "a solemn question of peace or war between two peoples ... on
whose continued good understanding might perhaps depend the future
freedom and happiness of the human race." To this statesmanlike proposal,*
Grenville readily acceded.

2. Bdaw the Surface

The strongest card in Grenville's hand was Ja/s patent desire to avoid
war. For the rest, he held few trumps. The war with France was going
badly. Austrian and German armies had been unable to prevent hard-hitting
French troops from occupying the Low Countries and the Khineland.
Spain, having cast in her lot with England after the guillotining of Louis
XVI, now regretted her bargain, and was veering ag^in toward a French
alliance. In England, taxes were rising, stock prices faffing. Tories in Parlia-
ment were making their disappointment known; Whig liberals, headed by
the irrepressible Charles Fox, never ceased to attack Pitt's heavy-handed
suppression of civil liberties.

"THIS DAMNED TREATY* [

England's position in America was hardly more encouraging. She occupied
the western posts* but illegally; the British navy could make rales for
American shipping, but without sanction of treaty; in a war with the United
States, England might inflict serious damage, but not without suffering the
loss of profitable trade.

There was more. Below the surface of politics, pressure for peace with
America was again being exerted on the government by the cloth makers,
who owned England's principal industry. In 1792, an American, Eli Whit-
ney, had invented a machine, the cotton gin, for mechanically extracting
cottonseed from raw cotton, and so eliminating the slow process of hand-
picking the seeds. Reports of his success, and of the imminent expansion of
the American short-staple cotton crop, had aroused great interest and pro-
duced a radical change in the long-range plans of England's cotton im-
porters. Until then, they had given little encouragement to American cotton
growers, who had made their first plantings only during the Revolution,
and whose production in 1794 was still negligible. Costly, long-staple
Indian cotton, which required to be shipped 13,000 miles out of Bombay,
around the Cape of Good Hope, was the mainstay of the industry. To
preserve this arrangement was the policy of the immensely powerful East
India Company, in which some of the cotton manufacturers themselves
owned shares.

But as new power-driven machinery expanded the capacity of England's
textile mills, the demand for raw cotton increased, and dissatisfaction with
the high prices fixed by the East India Company became ever stronger in
the Midlands. Manufacturers of the cheaper calicoes, especially, regarded
the invention of the American cotton gin as providential. They could foresee
a time when quantities of clean, accessible American cotton would fill the
maw of their factories at costs far less than they had to pay for the Indian
product. This was no time to be cut off from American trade. War with
America might well result in the springing up of a rival yarn-spinning and
textile-weaving industry in the States. Already a spinning machine com-
paring in efficiency with the jealously guarded designs of the British
power-driven jenny had been built in America by an 6migr6 Englishman
named Slater.

To the disputing voices of Manchester and the East India Company wer$
added those of another mighty economic power the Liverpool and London
shipowners. Their former traffic with the Continent had been reduced to a
fraction by the war with France, To expand trade with America, and give
than the carrying of it was the only way to put their idle vessels; to usa
The great maritime insurance companies, whose business was languishing^
seconded their views. In Parliament, in newspapers^ in pamphlets, m
memorials addi^ssetf to the Cabinet, mm of business cMtoigeql ; 0paoiville*s

[l2O] SHADOW OF THE FUTURE 1793-1802

policy toward the United States as unnecessarily dangerous and provocative.
What were the western posts> what the Canadian fur trade, compared to
the health of England's economy? Let the government effect a settlement
which would augment British exports to the United States,, which would
keep American ships out of the West Indian trade, which would give Man-
chester control of American cotton prices, and would assure the freightage
of cotton to British shipowners.

All this Grenville found rather tedious. But the fact was inescapable that
the politics of England were becoming increasingly an expression of
economics. He had to try to fuse the requirements of commerce with Eng-
land's wartime strategy.

3. "He Nodded with a

It came to John Jay as an enormous relief when dispatches from home,
late that summer, told of Wayne's masterly success. After carefully drilling
an army of nearly three thousand picked men, he had led them north to
the Miami country, fanning them out in columns which made flank attack
hazardous. Little Turtle tested the mettle of Wayne's troops in one or two
raids* and promptly withdrew from the Indian command, recommending
to the trite that they make peace. But the other chiefs* heavily subsidized
and supplied by Simcoe, refused to heed him, attempted to make a stand in
the forests near Fort Miami, and were crushed in the decisive battle of
Fallen Timbers. With the enemy dispersed and demoralized, Wayne ad-
vanced within a few hundred yards of the fort, under a flag of truce. There,
in a critical parley, he and the British colonel in command agreed to leave
the question of the ownership of the fort to the diplomats. The war pre-
dicted by Simcoe did not materialize.

While this encouraging news was in the making, the Foreign Office
specialists whom Grenville had assigned to work with Jay outlined the
British bargaining position. The old intractable questions of pre-Revolu-
tionary debts owed to British merchants^ of Loyalist properties, of the slave
seizures, of uncertain boundaries between Canada and the United States,
of British responsibility for American ship losseswhy not refer these to
joint commissions for settlement? Meanwhile, let the central issues be dealt
with the western posts and the matter of a commercial treaty. When the
diplomatic language had been distilled away, the hard residue of the
British proposal could be perceived. England was ready at kst to yield up
the posts. But to obtain this concession, America would have to accept
British wartime restrictions on her commerce with the French, .and conflne
her exports of cotton and certain other products to England, and to British
shipping.
Jay, for all his desire to "accommodate rather than dispute'* his words to

"THIS DAMNED TREATY" [ 121 ]

Hamilton argued these depressing terms. He reminded the British that the
neutral powers of Europe had agreed to defend themselves, if need be,
against the high-handed practices of the British Navy. If England's condi-
tions were too stiff, America might find herself compelled to join the new
Armed Neutrality.

This was a bluff; Washington and the Cabinet had secretly decided
against such a course, and Jay knew it. What he did not know was that the
British also knew it. Hamilton, in one of his startling indiscretions, had told
Hammond that America would under no circumstances become involved
with the European neutrals, and Hammond had promptly passed the word
to Grenville. In consequence, the British diplomats listened to Jay's threat
with the bland unconcern of a poker player who has seen his opponent's
cards in a mirror. However, they made a small concession: American vessels
of no more than seventy tons would be permitted to trade with the British
West Indies.

If, during the negotiations,, Jay's morale sometimes flagged in the daytime,
it was buoyed up in the evening festivities of the London season. King
George himself showed an unprecedented friendliness to Jay. It had its
effect Enthusiastically, Jay reported to Washington that "our prospects be-
come more and more promising ... A treaty of commerce is on the carpet
. . . The King observed to me the other day, Well, sir, I imagine you
begin to see that your mission will probably be successful/ 1 am happy, may
it please Your Majesty, to find that you entertain that idea/ Well, but don't
you perceive that it is like to be so?' "There are some recent circumstances
. . . which induce me to flatter myself that it will be so.' He nodded with
a smile . . "

4. The Realists

Late in 1794 Jay signed the draft of a treaty which began by saying*
"There shall be a firm, inviolable and universal peace, and a true and sincere
friendship, between his Britannic Majesty, and his heirs and successors, and
the United States of America." It went on to say that the British would
evacuate the western posts in June 1795. These were its only significant
benefits for America. From Jay's point of view, they were enough to justify
his signature. For all his vanity and susceptibility to his social environ-
ment, it was his own point of view as an American conservative, and not
that of his British friends, which he had sought to express. The treaty meant
peace, not war. It was "an entering wedge," in Ms words, for progressively
better relations with England. There were many British men erf afiaks wfca
felt that their goveninient pught to make no concession whatever to America,
but lather chastise her without delay, before she became too strong. Ajpoag
was the iofiuentigl Lord Sheffield, who later md && Jay

[122] SHADOW OF THE FUTURE 1793-1802

"perfectly duped" Grenville into an inadvisable peace. Jay himself felt lie
had achieved the utmost that was possible. To him the details of the treaty
were less important than the fact that England had voluntarily agreed to
bind herself to an agreement with the United States.

Because the British made much of Jay, and he was pleased, the idea is
widespread that he succumbed to their blandishments, but it is certainly
an oversimplification of the facts. Jay and Grenville were both men of large
experience and diplomatic insight. To both of them it was evident that the
terms of the Treaty of 1783 had been weighted in America's favor primarily
because France had then been America's partner in war. With French power
no longer available to the United States in a transatlantic war, there had
been a great change in her diplomatic position relative to England. Given
the actual power potential of each side, the Treaty of 1783 no longer
represented reality. Peace could be preserved only by mutual acceptance of
a new treaty, the terms of which would reflect more accurately the real
coercive force of each nation, its potential ability to injure the other by
hostile economic or military action. It was not weakness or folly, but rather
his view of reality that led Jay into fighting only a rear-guard action against
Grenville's pressure.

In the light of subsequent American history, there is good reason to be-
lieve that he saw with exceptional clarity the actual positions of his country
and of England as they stood in 1794. If the resulting treaty was deficient,
its deficiencies were those of practically every treaty, arising from failure
to anticipate and allow adequately for subsequent changes in the relative
power potentials of the nations concerned. It was consequently doomed
to early obsolescence; and the refusal of England to recognize its
obsolescence would produce strains leading to the crisis of 1812. But even
in respect to future changes Jay showed awareness. Recognizing that many
articles of the treaty would be unsatisfactory to American opinion, he
stressed the point that they were not necessarily permanent. As he wrote to
Washington, "The commercial part of the treaty may be terminated at the
expiration of two years after the war, and in the meantime a state of things
more auspicious to negotiation will probably arise."

Jay and Grenville^ when they met at the signing of the treaty, on
November 19, 1794, both were gravely aware of the historic nature of the
occasion. They had, in fact, advanced the principle of arbitration in inter-
national affairs farther than any statesmen before them. Grenville regarded
Jay, he later said,* as "a man valuable on every account," with whom he had
achieved a great work, to which no reasonable objection could be made
"except on the part of those who believe the interests of Great Britain
and the United States to be in contradiction."

"THIS DAMNED TREATY** [ 12"} J

5, "An Old Womm's Treaty"

The draft treaty encountered its first storms at sea, when the fast boat to
which Jay had entrusted it for delivery to Philadelphia ran into persistent
westerly winds and buffeting waves. The crossing was in fact so slow that
it created suspicion of a deliberate purpose on Jay's part Had he planned
with the ship's captain that the treaty should not arrive until after the ad-
journment of Congress? Whatever the truth of the matter, the document
did not reach the Secretary of State until three days after the senators who
would have had to be consulted had gone home. The Administration thus
had time to determine its strategy, and it needed time.

Randolph's first reading of the treaty filled him with dismay. Jay had
ignored nine tenths of his instructions. He had failed to provide for the
cessation of impressment or compensation^ or ship seizures. He had accepted
in principle the Rule of 1756, granting to belligerent England the right to
dictate to neutral American commerce. He had consented to a British
shipping monopoly of tropical crops grown in America. He had vitiated
America's treaties with France by forbidding the fitting out of enemy
privateers in American ports an issue which the Gent affair had left un-
resolved. The treaty's pretense of reciprocity was too thin to deceive anyone.
Specifying that English ships of war would he hospitably received in Ameri-
can waters, it gave the same privilege to the non-existent American navy.
As to the mixed commissions to which Jay assented for the handling of old
claims,, the arrangement greatly favored England. American claimants in
London had to submit themselves to endless court procedures before com-
missioners could hear their cases, while British claimants in America were
for the most part allowed to bypass American courts.

Washington, when the treaty was put in his hands, was less disturbed
than Randolph. Jay's view that any negotiated treaty which made for peace
was better than no treaty was also the President 7 s. Hamilton came to his
side at once, but now only in an unofficial capacity, for he had resigned
from the Treasury. The rewards of a New York law practice had tempted
him to leave the government, in order to rid himself of nagging creditors;
and with an election not much more than a year away, he found it necessary
to devote an increasing amount of time to his responsibilities as leader of
the Federalist party.

According to a story of the time, Hamilton's first words about the treaty
expressed disgust: "An old woman's treaty." His objection could hardly have
been to its broad policy,, which was his own, or to its onededbes^ since he
himself had out the ground from under Jay in the matter of the Aimed
Mcliteaiiity.' But the extremes to ; which the treaty went in -its , dSsaec^aiaA for
America's sovereignty ovei lier otib .oomm'Ote weye bctafcd to

[ 124 ] SHADOW OF THE FUTURE 1793-1802

difficulties ahead. Still, there it was. The decision taken by Washington, on
Hamilton's advice, was to submit the treaty to a special session of the Senate,
and not to publish it until after full ratification.

While the senators were making their laborious way back to Philadelphia,
John Jay arrived from England; he had awaited spring weather before sub-
jecting himself to the Atlantic crossing. The moment, for him, was critical
in a personal as well as in a national sense. During his absence, Hamilton's
influence had brought about Jay's nomination as Federalist candidate for
Governor of New York State, and he had been elected only a few days
before his homecoming. His acceptance of the new post, involving as it did
his resignation as Chief Justice, was widely interpreted as a sign of larger
ambitions. Everything depended on the public response to the treaty. If it
were not unfavorable, Jay might easily become the next President; he had
the backing of Hamilton, who had no illusions about his own chances of
succeeding Washington, and was known to dislike the other major Feder-
alist possibility, John Adams.

6. Explosion

For a few weeks, all went well. The Senate, convening in June 1795,
solemnly imposed on its members an injunction of strict secrecy, and
plunged into hot debate behind closed doors. Little by little outraged
national pride gave way before the urge to peace and the profits of trade, but
some clauses of the treaty went down hard, and one stuck in senatorial
throats. This was a British attempt to restrict the tonnage of American
ships in the West Indian trade, and confine them to the American market.
It threatened for a time to prevent ratification, but Hamilton,, as usual,
came to the rescue. He had been in close touch with Hammond, and he
was confident that if the Senate expunged the objectionable clause and
ratified the rest of the treaty, England would accept the change. With this
proviso to sustain self-respect, the bare two-thirds majority required for
ratification was found, and the treaty, still secret, went to the President for
his signature.

As it lay on Washington's desk, rumors of its contents began to appear
in the Republican press. Letters signed "Franklin" were published in
Philadelphia denouncing the document in vague but inflammatory terms.
The Anglophobes needed no further encouragement In Republican
taverns, excited men harangued each other about the imminent betrayal of
the United States by Jay, Hamilton, and the President Wild rumors spread
until credulity and passion, feeding on each other, exploded into violence.
On the very day when Jay was inaugurated as Governor of New York, an
effigy of him bearing the label "Sir John Jay" was placed m the pillory at
Philadelphia, guillotined, and blown up with gunpowder

"THIS DAMNED TREATY 1 * [ 125 ]

Then on July 3, the influential Philadelphia newspaper Aurora printed
the entire text of the treaty. Senator Stevens Mason of Virginia, it appeared,
had decided that "duty to the nation" took precedence over solidarity with
his colleagues, and had violated the senatorial injunction of secrecy. Phila-
delphia responded first, with a mass meeting which designated July 4 as a
day of national humiliation, like a torrent of flaming oil, the uproar then
spread through the nation. The burning of effigies of Jay became a common-
place. Federalists as well as Republicans joined in the outcry. So staunch a
conservative as John Rotledge of South Carolina, who had just been nomi-
nated by Washington to succeed Jay as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court,
denounced the treaty. The South was rabid. In a Virginia tavern a speaker
was cheered when he gave as a toast: "A speedy death to General Washing-
ton! 7 * Even in Federalist New England, indignation rose to the pitch of
frenzy. Patriotic old Samuel Adams, the Governor of Massachusetts, raged
against Jay. Flags were lowered to half mast in Boston and crowds assaulted
incautious citizens who dared to defend the treaty in public. In New
York, Hamilton himself was attacked when he appeared to speak at a meet-
ing. His forehead bleeding where a stone had struck him, he eyed the crowd,
and said disdainfully, "If you use such striking arguments, I must retire."
As he left the hall, crowds in the streets were shouting "Damn John Jay!"
"Damn the British!" New York's growing Irish colony led the anti-British
demonstrations. At one mass meeting, an Irish orator shouted to an ap-
preciative crowd, "What a damned treaty! I make a motion that every good
citizen in this assembly kick this damned treaty to hell!"

Washington had ridden out other storms, but "never since I have been in
the administration of the government," he wrote, **have I seen a crisis from
which more is to be apprehended." He saw America at a crossroads. If he
signed the treaty, the country faced the risk of war with France; if he did
not, "there is no foreseeing all the consequences which may follow, as it
respects Great Britain." Nevertheless, unsatisfactory as he considered the
treaty to be, he was determined on ratification, rather than "to suffer matters
to remain as they are, unsettled." His was the gift of simplicity. He would
not change his mind "unless circumstances more imperious than have yet
come to my knowledge should compel it; for there is btit one straight
course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily."

A serious administrative difficulty confronted him* All the member of
the Cabinet wore for ratification, except one but that one was Ms 'Seetdaiy
of State* Bdmund Randolph. His known pro-Fiencli feanmg^ and his ctefe
ties to Jefferson created suspicion that he wdttld wori to titick the itefct^s
ratification. It was a danger not easy to avoid. To request Randolph^ lesig-
nation without stroing leawn would have destroyed'- all bopfe of 'tatibbal
unity. - , ' i ; '

[ 126 ] SHADOW OF THE FUTURE 1793-1802

Then occurred an incident curiously reminiscent of the method used by
England to influence Jay in the Rayneval affair. On that occasion, the British
had produced an intercepted French dispatch at the psychological moment
This time the rabbit in the magic hat was a letter written by the French
minister in Philadelphia, Fauchet, to his government. Allegedly taken by
an English officer from a captured French ship, there was in it an implication
that Randolph might be willing to accept French money. The dispatch went
to Hammond, and thereafter through Hamilton's hands to the Cabinet and
the President. Washington, recognizing that there was no actual evidence
in the letter to support an accusation against Randolph, hesitated to use it,
but the moment came when he confronted Randolph, and in the presence
of other cabinet members asked for an explanation. Randolph's quite truth-
ful denial that he had been guilty of any impropriety might have carried
more weight if it had not been known that he was on familiar terms with
Fauchet To be sure, Hamilton had been even closer to England's minister,,
but then Hamilton was no longer in the Cabinet, and in any event there
had never been any hint of financial transactions between them. Shocked,
embittered, and perceiving that Washington was determined to be rid of
him, Randolph offered his resignation the same day. The way was clear
at last for signature of the treaty by the President, and an exchange of
ratifications with England.

7. A Hint of Destiny

Viewed in very broad terms, Jay's mission to Engknd succeeded in avert-
ing war because he made peace his prime objective not only in words, as
diplomats generally do, but in action, as they generally do not. He went far
beyond his instructions, beyond Washington's intention, beyond even
Hamilton's wishes in order to obtain Grenville's signature on a treaty. The
fact that America's national tradition was still young and not fully developed
enabled Jay to take liberties with it that would be unthinkable for later
American statesmen. In giving England the right to make laws of the sea
for American commerce he did violence to his nation's sovereignty. But in
spite of all the patriotic anguish that he caused, tie heavens did not fall,
the country was not crushed by humiliation, its future was not jeopardized.
When the necessity of peace came in conflict with patriotic sentiment, the
- people chose peace, and followed Jay, even while they damned him.

Curiously,, the chief and most immediate benefit experienced by the
United States from the treaty came not from the Great Lakes, not from
London, but from Madrid. An incompetent Spanish King, Charles IV, his
self-opinionated Queen, Luisa, and a swaggering young minister, Godoy,
had got far out of their depth in the stormy diplomacy of the time. Godoy,
who had come to eminence by way of the Queen's bed, had persuaded

"THIS DAMNED TREATY** [ 127 ]

Charles that Spain should join England in defeating revolutionary France.
This was not altogether a matter of ideology and of ambition for French
territory. It was Godoy's expectation that an American war with England
would soon break out on the Canadian border. If his assumption had been
valid, not only would the security of Spain's threatened American colonies
have been enhanced, but she might have seized the opportunity to extend
them. Ignoring Kentucky's threats, in 1794 he revoked America's hard-won
rights in the navigation of the Mississippi. But his calculations were based
on a false premise^ the imminent defeat of France. Almost immediately
thereafter, the situation abruptly changed. The French, capitalizing on their
military successes, poised an army on Spain's border, and warned of invasion
if she did not withdraw forthwith from the British alliance.

Spain dared not risk the consequence of refusal, and a treaty of peace
with France followed. But Godoy still counted on an Anglo-American war.
As months passed and it did not come, his alarm grew. The rumblings in
Kentucky were taking on an ominous note. There was great respect in
Louisiana for the fighting qualities of the American frontiersman; and the
few Spanish regiments in New Orleans, Mobile, and Pensacola were ill-
equipped and underpaid. Unless America's attention was promptly di-
verted to Canada,, Spain's empire north of the Gulf might be lost

When Jay and Grenville, confounding European expectations, signed
their treaty, Godoy's last hope collapsed. For the first time, he found it
necessary to placate the United States. The new word went forth: Spain,
like England, might consent to a treaty with America. No news could have
pleased Washington more. Detaching Thomas Pinckney from his British
assignment, he ordered him to Madrid, with instructions to take a firm
line. The results were happier than anyone in Philadelphia dared hope.
Under Pinckney's steady pressure^ the Spanish government gave so much
ground that the treaty which he signed in October 1795, proved to be one
long concession. Free navigation of the Mississippi was granted without
reservation. With it went the long desired right of Americans to deposit
goods in New Orleans warehouses for export. The boundary of West Florida
was definitely established at the thirty-first parallel. Spain furthermore
promised to restrain Indian tribes in her territory from attacks on American
settlements. Here was an unprecedented diplomatic triumph for America.
When Pinckney returned home with the treaty, he was given an ovation the
more impressive because of its contrast with Jay's reception a few months
earlier. Few then recognized that Pincfcney's Treaty had been upcle po^bie
by Ja/s.

The effects of the Spanish concessions wore promptly felt apfd CsuMreadhfag}
With the Mississippi open at last, the Keotadrians became less and

disgruntled^ began to regard ihenudves,

[ 128 ] SHADOW OF THE FUTURE 1793-1802

States, to shrug at agitators for separatism and secession. A new sense of
unity, an optimistic faith in America's future uplifted the nation. The
nationalist and expansionist spirit which decades later found expression in
the phrase "Manifest Destiny" was born in those days of exultation over
Pinckney's achievement. The South became ever more impatient for the
time when Spain would be driven beyond the Gulf of Mexico. In the
North, eyes turned covetously toward Canada. The next great wave of
anti-British feeling, as it rolled toward 1812, would gain impetus from the
surge of territorial aspiration which rose with the signing of the Jay and
Pinckney treaties,

8, The House Yields

On March 3^ 1796, the Senate gave unanimous approval to Pinckney's
Treaty, and on the same day proclaimed Jay's Treaty to be in effect. By that
time, the outcry against Jay and his work had lessened. It was as if the
country's excitement had been spent. Perhaps outbreaks of yellow fever in
a number of cities had a sobering influence, but the essential fact was that
the treaty meant peace, and peace was what most people wanted, whatever
they might have said in a moment of patriotic hysteria. Even further
molestation of American ships by British naval vessels in contradiction to
the spirit of the Jay treaty did not provoke anything like the anger of the
year before.

For Thomas Jefferson, who had emerged into the open as the treaty's
chief antagonist, and who even now continued to scheme for its destruction,
the change in the popular mood was discouraging. He saw dearly that he
could not safely rely on public opinion alone to invalidate "that execrable
thing/' as he called the treaty. But he had a final resource on which he
thought he could idy. The joint commissions established by the treaty to
settle controversial issues required governmental funds; such funds could
be voted only by the House of Representatives; and the Republicans con-
stituted a m^fority of the House. Without the consent of the House, the
teaty, for practical purposes, would be nullified. "I trust," wrote Jefferson,
"the popular branch of the legislature will disapprove of it, and thus rid
us of this Infamous act, which is really nothing more than a treaty of
alliance between England and the Anglomen of this country against the
legislature and the people." The House appeared of a mind to oblige him.
Many of its members felt that it was their duty not only to defeat the
treaty, but to prove the power of the representatives superior to that of the
Presidentas in republican France. At the vary time in the late winter of
1796 when the Senate was giving its final endorsement to the treaty, the
House passed a resolution calling on the President to turn over to it his
correspondence with Jay and other documents relating to the mattei.

"THIS BAMNED TREATY" [ 129 ]

Washington immediately refused. The power to make treaties, he said
with conviction, is vested exclusively in the President, with the advice and
consent of the Senate. Once a treaty had been made, it was the duty of the
House to assure its effectiveness. But the Republican majority, unimpressed,
retorted by another resolution, asserting their right to deliberate on a treaty
which could be implemented only if the House voted the requisite funds.

It was a nice point, which would not be settled until Andrew Johnson,
in 1868, conceded that the House was entitled to debate the merits of
America's treaty with Russia for the purchase of Alaska, and within limits
had the right to refuse appropriations for it. Washington, however, faced
far more than a construction of constitutional law. The entire future of the
American nation was at stake. In the context of the time, a surrender to the
House would have implied war with England; it would have implied a
victory of American radicalism and danger for the propertied classes; it would
have linked America to revolutionary France. In his view, the challenge of
the House had to be resisted, no matter how. Hamilton wrote an urgent
letter on this point to Senator Rufus King of New York. If appropriations
for the treaty should be denied,, he said, let the Senate encourage the
President to put the treaty into effect without further reference to the
House. "The glory of the President, the safety of the constitution, the great-
est interests depend on it."

The House, meeting for the final day of the debate, was in a state of
high tension. The Jeffersonians at first seemed to have every advantage, as
they urged the representatives once and for all to denounce the treaty, refuse
the President the required funds, and call for war. But the House as a whole
gave an extraordinary demonstration of self-control. The serious and
thoughtful debate that followed showed its awareness of the responsibility
which it was assuming. A number of Republicans who had been commun-
ing with their consciences drew back from an open break with the President.
Albert Gallatin, then making his mark as a congressman, confessed that
However injurious and unequal I conceive the treaty to be, however
repugnant it may be to my feelings, and perhaps to my prejudices, I feel
induced to vote for it, and will not give my assent to any proposition which
would imply its rejection." As a compromise, he proposed that the House
postpone the voting of moneys for the treaty until England gave assurances
that she meant to abide by its professions of friendship.

Th^ Federalist reply provided one of the great dramatic moments of the
period-r-tibe famous speech by Fisher Ames of Massachusetts, for years after-
wai?d a staple of American education. Amfcs^ gKbdtogh a right-wii^ Fectmi-
isfc, held Hie esteem of raaiiy Republicans as a IBTO of abiity and f orihrijs^l-
^id',a ; pemiasiVe"Oiat0r. A serious fines* had; lo% confimed bttavto i&
; ml' If ^as 1 &' ifeSanee of 4A tidbi'$ tedtas that' tfe '

[ 130] SHADOW OF THE FUTURE 1793-1802

Congress Hall. Frail, drawn, and tottering, apparently close to death, Be
rose to speak to a hushed House. The issue, he pointed out, was a simple
one: "Shall we violate a solemn engagement into which this country has
entered?" Honor was in the balance, and more than honor. To reject the
treaty was to bring upon the Northwest all the horrors of another Indian
war. "We light the savage fires, we bind the victims. This day we undertake
to render account to the widows and orphans whom our decision will make
to the wretches who will be roasted at the stake!" As to war with England,
what could it bring America except confusion and anarchy?

The most intransigeant Jeffersonians in the House listened to him spell-
bound as he touched upon a central truth of diplomacy that negotiation,
even if it merely marks time, even if it only postpones decision,, gives altered
circumstances a chance to reveal themselves, and so can help to uncover
new areas of agreement in an apparently hopeless deadlock. "Even the
minutes I have spent in expostulating have their value, because they protract
the crisis and the short period in which alone we may resolve to escape it.
Yet I have;, perhaps, as little interest in the event as any man here. There is,
perhaps, no member who wiU not think his chance to be a witness of the
consequences greater than mine. If, however,, the vote should pass . . . even
I, slender and almost broken as my hold on life is, may outlive the govern-
ment and constitution of my country/' Men wept openly as he sat down,
and John Adams, who was in the gallery, said in a broken voice, "My God!
How great he is!"

The historical significance of Ames's speech is suggjested by the vote which
followed. By the skin of a ma jority fifty-one to f orty-eight the House voted
for a resolution to carry the treaty into effect. The press and the congress-
men themselves had no doubt that without the emotional tide produced
by the speech the resolution would have foundered. Some Republican
skeptics spread a report that it was Hamilton who had persuaded Ames to
leave his sickbed, and who had staged his mighty oration. Of this there could
be no proof. In any event Ames, having done his work, lived on for many
years.

9. Scherzo Diplomatico

Jay's Treaty was the law of the land. By kte summer of 1796, England
began at last to make good her pledge of 1783, by transferring the western
posts to American troops. But as Thomas Jefferson saw it, the fight over
the treaty was far from finished. It remained to him to thwart what he
considered a plot of Hamilton and Jay to give England domination over
American commerce. If in the election just ahead he wore to win; the
Presidency, he could press for revision of the treaty, and above aU, he cotild
work to appease the just indignation of Fiance* In the meantime, rest$aiai

"THIS DAMNED TREATY" [ 131 ]

on the part of the French was essential to his hopes. He stood before the
country as an advocate of the French revolutionary cause. A weakening of
America's relations with France inevitably weakened his own political status
at home. Whenever France, in resentment against Washington's neutrality,
harassed American shipping, it was the Republicans, not the Federalists,
who were politically damaged.

After the ratification of Jay's treaty the French government seemed for a
time ready to lump all Americans, Federalists and Republicans, in the same
curses. They had reason to feel that they had been hoaxed. James Monroe,
who in 1794 had replaced Gouverneur Morris as American minister to Paris,
had revealed a totally indiscreet but engagingly sincere enthusiasm for the
French Republic and all its works. France could not know how grossly
Monroe was exceeding his instructions when he wrote to the revolutionary
Convention and asked to be received "as the representative of their ally
and sister republic/' or when he exchanged fraternal embraces with the
President of the Convention in the names of both their peoples, to the
frenzied cheering of the delegates.

His entire stay in France was one long and heart-warming, if unconscious
deception. France, he conveyed, could do no wrong in American eyes. In-
structed to ask the French Government to compensate American ship-
owners for illegal ship seizures, he added astoundingly, and entirely on his
own initiative, that if France later felt that the decree authorizing the
seizures should be put into effect again,, "my countrymen in general will
not only bear it with patience, but with pleasure." Asked by France whether
the United States might lend funds to aid her in carrying on the war against
Europe's "impious coalition of tyrants," he acknowledged that he had no
authority to answer the question, but conveyed his personal belief that such
aid would be rendered. On the strength of this comforting assertion, the
French issued decrees to compensate owners of seized American ships only
to find that they received nothing in return.

Even the announcement of Jay's mission to England did not dampen the
zeal with which Monroe unwittingly conjured up illusion in the high places
of the French Government. On the basis of the little that he had been told
by Philadelphia, Monroe asserted to France's Foreign Minister, Delacroix,
that Jay was "strictly limited to demanding reparations for injuries," and
that there was no reason to fear the negotiation in London. As a Besullv
the Directory, which had just assumed powex in France^ failed to protest
Jay's mission to the enemy when it was first announced. The sfaopk IB- Finis
when the terms of the treaty were finally divulged was not lessened by the
realization tfyat MonrOe siucerely believed! Iris own statepaeoLis. Ojtpijr
it was too late did Fiance let loose a blast against Aotatioafc -

SHADOW OF THE FtJTTOE 1793-1802

her revolutionary principles. Still Monroe refused to be daunted. The
Republican House of Representatives, he assured the French Government,
would never vote the funds required to make the treaty effective. This
time, when the event proved him a false prophet, he felt a certain embar-
rassment But it was the honest embarrassment of the optimistic weather
forecaster who is betrayed by the elements.

And like the weather forecaster, he was forgiven, since he had at least
tried for sunlight. His adulation of the French Republic was so appealing
in its simplicity that Paris spared him from personal blame. The word in the
salons was that not Monroe, but the enemies of France in Philadelphia
were responsible for the sinister turn of events, and an order from President
Washington, recalling Monroe in the autumn of 1796, was taken as an
affront to the French Republic. Ostentatiously the Directory tendered
Monroe an impressive farewell banquet. There he sat avidly drinking in
praise of himself and listening to bombastic threats against his President
and his country, if they should persevere in their neutrality. He left Paris
trailing clouds of Gallic glory.

Washington then announced the appointment in Monroe's place of a
minister who provided the maximum contrast. Charles Cotesworth Pinck-
ney, elder brother of the former minister to England, had studied at Oxford,
attended a military college in pre-Revolutionary France^ was a Carolina
Federalist with aristocratic antecedents was,, in fact, precisely the man to
send to Paris if the purpose was to antagonize the French Directory. That
Hamilton had a hand in his selection is certain. It was very much to his
interest, just thai, to keep the Pinckneys in the national eye; Thomas
Pinckney was his avowed candidate for the Vice-Presidency in the coming
election, and his secret candidate for President

Monroe's recall and Pinckney's appointment filled the American Re-
publicans with forebodings. It was predicted that the French in reprisal
would shortly resume their attacks on American vessels en route to British
ports. Hamilton would certainly have welcomed such a development before
the election; it would have crushed Jefferson's chances. But having spoken
her mind, France saw nothing to gain by overt moves which would have
undone the pro-French party in America. Her navy for the time being left
American vessels undisturbed. A new French minister, Adet, was sent to
Philadelphia with instructions to make it plain to the American people that
the goodwill of France, with her formidable armies, was conditional on
Jefferson's success at the polls. There followed the publication in the Ameri-
can press of open letters from Adet advocating Jefferson's election, and
irritating a good many Americans to whom Genet's interference in the
country's internal affairs was only too vivid a memory.

"THIS DAMNED TREATY**

10. Hamilton Stumbles

Against Jefferson, there stood John Adams. He was far from popular with
the leaders of his party, but with Hamilton and Jay labeled as tools of the
British, the Federalists had little choice in the matter. Adams's services in
the Revolution, his long vice-presidency under Washington, his indisputable
integrity, his aggressiveness as minister to England all this made for vote.
Nor could there be much debate over the Federalist selection for the vice-
presidency. Thomas Pinckney was then at the zenith of his popularity a
Carolina man beloved of the South and liked in the North the man who
had stood up manfully to Lord Grenville and who had persuaded Spain to
open the Mississippi. In Hamilton's eyes, Pinckney had one further
qualification, and no small one they got on together. This was especially
important to him because of the instinctive antipathy which existed between
Adams and himself. It was all too apparent that Adams, if elected, would
seek his counsel as little as possible. To have at least the Vice-President
responsive to him was sound strategy especially as the office carried in the
popular mind distinct connotations of succession to the Presidency.

Under the Constitution as it then stood, the people would not be voting
directly for the presidential candidates. Instead, the voters in each state
would choose among candidates for the legislature put up by the respective
parties; the legislature would appoint the state's members of the Electoral
College; and the electors would subsequently choose the President. Hamil-
ton's thinking focused on the article of the Constitution under which each
elector was authorized to vote for two presidential candidates, with the
winner of the largest majority to be President, of the next largest, Vice-
President. As the grand strategist of his party, he was supposed to assure
that Adams and Pinckney would finish in that order, and both ahead of
Jefferson. The auguries were auspicious, for the Federalists dominated in
the populous northern states, and had substantial support in Maryland,
Virginia, and the Carolinas; and although the South would certainly commit
the bulk of its electors to Jefferson, the persuasive Aaron Burr, running
against him, could be counted on to siphon off votes of Republican electors
in the North.

In the early days of the campaign, Hamilton seemed dedicated to Adams,
as his party's choice. Part of the time he spent with Washington, aiding in
the preparation of the Farewell Address. The timing of the publication of
the address, six weeks before the election, was recognized as giving aid to
Actanas. It was unmistakable that the p^o-French Jeffeooipa^s v&az m
Washington's mind when he cautioned the American people; "Nothing is
more essential than that pennawnt, inveterate antipathies against p$iticu-
lar nations and passionate att^dbineiits jEor others shpuld tye

I 154] SHADOW OF THE FOTTmE 1793-1802

The nation which indulges toward another an habitual hatred or an
habitual fondness is in some degree a slave . . ."

To the members of his party Hamilton reiterated the need to exclude
Jefferson from executive office at all costs. The Federalist electors had to be
made to understand the importance of conserving every vote. Let each of
them vote only for Adams and Pinckney, Hamilton counseled. It would
be a risk to cast even a single sentimental vote for any other name on the
list of candidates. If, when the votes were counted, Adams and Pinckney
were to finish in a tie, no harm would be done. The election would then be
thrown into the House of Representatives, with each state having a single
vote. The Federalists^ on this basis, would again be in control, and could
designate Adams as President.

Northern electors pledged to Adams heard Hamilton's instructions with
misgivings. It was all very well to tell them to cast their second vote without
fail for Pinckney; but would every Federalist elector from Maryland and
Virginia, who would unquestionably be for Pinckney, cast his second vote
for Adams? Did Hamilton really believe that he could hold southern
Federalists in line, when, as everyone knew, they were southerners first, and
Federalists second? Adams, as a personality, was not popular in the South;
and as a New Englander,, he stirred up deep prejudices in southern hearts.
It needed little political sagacity to foresee that some southern electors
voting for Pinckney would throw away their second votes, rather than cast
them for the spirit of Massachusetts. If at the same time the northern
Federalists followed Hamilton's strategy, voting equally for Adams and
Pinckney, Pinckney would be elected President, and Adams only Vice-
President

That Hamilton, one of the most astute politicians of his age, had over-
looked this implication of his strategy was incredible. It dawned on those
around him that the relegation of Adams to second place was precisely
his objective. Later it became known that he had gone even farther in his
attempt to undo Adams. To make sure that Virginia's Federalist electors
would have no votes to spare for the New Englander, Hamilton had en-
couraged a movement designed to enter the name of Patrick Henry, the
Old Dominion's favorite son, as a candidate. But Henry had cannily refused
to dance to Hamilton's tune*

Suddenly Hamilton found himself facing a revolt within his party, and
it quickly ran out of control. His power was on the wane; the rebels knew
it, and were determined to keep faith with Adams. The result was that on
the day of the vote the Federalists in the Electoral College no longer had
any cohesion. Some of those from the North, having voted for Adams;
failed to declare a second choice, while a number of Pinckney Federalists
from the South, rather than support Adams, went so fer as to give their

"THIS DAMKED TREATY" [ 135 ]

second votes to Thomas Jefferson, who was, after all, a Virginia gentleman.
In the tally, Jefferson came close to winning the presidency, with sixty-eight
votes to Adams's seventy-one. Pinckney had fifty-nine and Burr thirty, with
a few scattering. Hamilton had unintentionally made his archenemy Vice-
President of the United States. Seldom liave the interlocking chances out of
which history is constructed produced a more ironic twist.

For the first time in his career, Hamilton had been severely set back. The
private offices of both the President and the Vice-President would be
closed to him. Yet there were consolations. Members of Adams's cabinet
carried over from the Washington administration were thoroughly domi-
nated by Hamilton, and would inform him and consult Mm at every point.
And his policies remained intact. The conservatives were still in power,
Jay's Treaty still held, the commerce on which America's financial solvency
depended continued to grow. Above all* the threatened war with England
had been averted.

CHAPTER FOUR

X Y Z

i. Talleyrand on America

The memoirs of statesmen show that international diplomacy often seems
to its practitioners like a fascinating but never-ending dramatic performance,
with Mars in the prompter's box. Men like Hamilton and Jefferson, deeply
held by conviction as they were, nevertheless found a pleasure in the play
for its own sake, and entered into their roles with a certain professional
detachment This John Adams could not do. His temperament, in which
there was a great deal of self-righteousness and very little humor, caused
him to see himself as coauthor, rather than as player in the spectacle a
coauthor arguing with a gloomy collaborator* and barely staving off a tragic
d&nouement It would not have been* possible for him to believe that the
chief diplomatic episode of his Presidency, the notorious XYZ affair, would
appear to later historians to have a distinct touch of opera bouffe. But it
was opera bouffe with consequences. The traditional opinion of the people
of the United States that European diplomats are smooth scoundrels bent
on taking advantage of the inexperienced, upright American took root at
this time.

The note of absurdity was introduced by one of the spectacular mounte-
banks of the age, Charles Maurice Talleyrand, who became Foreign
Minister of France in 1797. For the previous several years, with his head
forfeit in France, he had stayed safely in the United States, waiting for the
gieat blood-letting to ran its course. The former abb6 and future prince
was hard up,, but he managed to earn enough for his needs by acting as
correspondent for British merchants. He met Hamilton, who in spite of the
Freacimaii's cadaverous face and scrawny, limping figure, was rather taken
by his style, and opened a number of doors to him. On his part, Talleyrand
regarded Hamilton as the best mind he encountered in America. "He
divined Europe," was his comment, suggesting that he had met a man al-
most as worldly as himself.

The &nigr set himself to learn all that he could of American life. To an
enlightened observer, the young nation was a fascinating hodgepodge of
Old World traditions and New World enterprise, of English, Scotch, Irish,
Dutch, French, Spanish, and Red Indian customs; of Tom Paine's creed
of freedom and of Negro slavery. In Boston, Albany, New York, Philadel-
phia, Baltimore, and "the Federal City/' then being built on the Potomac,

XYZ [137]

Talleyrand made extensive notes on the economic and political mores of
the people. The convictions which he formed at this time became part of
the explosive mixture of circumstance out of which the War of 1812 finally
flamed. The chief of these convictions was that economic interest would
always dictate the character of America's relations with other countries.
Thus, her profitable commerce with England precluded any chance of a
military alliance with the French. That such eminent men as Thomas
Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe professed a strong sympathy
for revolutionary France was all very well, and the names of Lafayette and
Beaumarchais were always applauded in patriotic orations; but that this
practical people, with their aggressive commercial outlook, would in high
politics be guided by sentimental feeling for the past was, in Talleyrand's
view, utterly unlikely. He knew his Machiavelli too well to count on the
gratitude of governments. Jay's Treaty he considered to prove his point

The assumption of power by the Directory in 1795 was the signal that
Talleyrand had been waiting for. France's political pendulum, having swung
as far as it could to the left, was now moving back again. Soon interventions
on his behalf by influential friends in Paris, including Mme. de Stael, pro-
duced an annulment of accusations which had been made against him, and
provided the documents necessary for his safe return to France.

To avoid another pitch-and-roll winter crossing of the Atlantic, he waited
until the spring equinox had passed before going home. Meanwhile he used
leisure to advantage, putting into polished form two long reports, the most
important of which was entitled /"A Memoir on the Commercial Relations
between the United States and England." Dispassionately, clearly, and
cogently he set forth the reasons why America was peacefully putting up
with the most outrageous abuses by the British navy search and seizure
of cargoes, impressment of American sailors. Not national cowardice, but
the tie of common profit was the essence of the matter. "The spirit of
commerce makes men selfish." But sympathetic tradition also had to be
taken into account "There is something monarchical in the executive
power of the American government" This tended, he thought, to create
a link to British institutions.

2. A Little Squeeze

Soon after his return to Paris, Talleyrand read this paper to the National
Institute of France. It made a strong impression, and his election to that
august body followed a sure sign that he had the favor of the Directory.
When he accepted the Foreign Ministry, it was wittopt illusions* Q the
five Directors, two were notoriously corrupt and two thoroughly incompe-
tent France's war on the Continent was going less well, prices wef@ high,
business was bad, prisons were crowded!, the people were gmpibliBg, It w^

[138] SHADOW OF THE FUTURE 1793-1802

evident to Talleyrand that the Directory would not long survive. Sooner or
later, one of France's ambitious generals would capitalize on popular dis-
content, make a coup (Fetat, seize power, and replace the present set of
rascals with another. Talleyrand thought that the young Bonaparte, already
Idolized by half of Europe, was the ablest and most likely candidate for the
task.

The flamboyant Paul Barras, who dominated the Directory, could see
what Talleyrand saw, and had set about to accumulate as much money as
possible before the d6Mde. For Barras, one of Talleyrand's chief qualifi-
cations as Foreign Minister was his airy freedom from scruple. From the
very beginning, the new minister played the game; in fact, his first gleeful
words upon hearing of his appointment, were "I shall be rich, yes, im-
mensely rich/' When he died, a very old man> it was as the richest man in
France.

In Bis eyes money was, as he said, "the only universal cult/' Unlike Barras,
however, he was selective in his pursuit of the franc. While he was a man of
kbyrinthine insincerity^ while he was ready to fleece the representatives of
other nations and to betray politicians in his own, he was at the same time
sincerely devoted to the interests of France, as he saw them. It is not re-
corded that he ever took a bribe at the expense of French power. Within
this limit, he was ruthless. If another nation wished to avoid punishment
by one of France's conquering armies, then let it pay money, not only
publicly for its treaty of peace, but before then, privately, to Talleyrand
and the Directors,, for the privilege of being heard. Portugal in 1797 provided
a case in point. The Portuguese minister in Paris was compelled to put up a
substantial douceur in order to interest Talleyrand in his plea for peace*
and then was not accorded serious negotiation until he had paid as much
again. Talleyrand's conception of foreign affairs was essentially feline. He
liked nothing better than to use both paws in teasing his mouse. The total
sum extracted from the Portuguese was eight million francs, of which three
mfllio went to Barras, and one million each to Talleyrand and the other
four Directors. All this was hardly a secret. Talleyrand contended that such
^distributions in diplomatic affairs" were sanctioned by custom, and even
just Portugal, for example, had profited heavily from wartime trade while
Frenchmen bled for liberty. She owed something, therefore, to any French-
man who was in a position to extort payment.

It struck Talleyrand that something of this sort might be done with the
Americans, comparatively poor as they were. For purposes of squeeze^ the
situation was propitious. The Jay Treaty had facilitated the British blockade
of French ports in the West Indies. France had a legitimate grievance. But
this was only the beginning of her complaints against the United States.
America's professions of neutrality were an affront to French sensibilities^

XYZ

proof that she had callously ignored her obligations as ally of France under
the treaties of 1778. The American government had recalled the one traly
sympathetic minister whom it had sent to Paris, James Monroe. The Ameri-
can people had failed to elect as President the one candidate on whom
France might pin hope of friendship, Thomas Jefferson. To cap the list of
offenses, Washington, before leaving the presidency, had attempted to re-
place Monroe by a noted southern Federalist, C. C. Pinckney, whose attitude
toward republican France was known to be negative. From the French
standpoint, there had been only one proper course to take, and the Foreign
Office had taken it. A new search-and-seizure decree of extraordinary harsh-
ness went into effect against American vessels engaged in commerce with
the British; and when Pinckney arrived in Paris he was not allowed to
present his credentials. Instead, he was subjected to a number of petty
indignities, and finally compelled to leave France under threat of arrest*
This was in February 1797.

Talleyrand did not believe that the United States would go to war over
such comparatively minor provocations as France had given her. The pivot
of his transatlantic policy was the feeling that Americans would always
follow the dollar and many dollars were being made by their merchantmen
in running the British blockade of the French West Indies. It was inconceiva-
ble to him that their needy government would throw away this source of
income. Not that he failed to recognize the strength of the anti-French
feeling among the Federalists. America's new Secretary of State^ Timothy
Pickering, was known to be spoiling for a fight with France. But President
Adams himself seemed sincerely desirous of peace. Thomas Jefferson had
declared "I do not believe Mr. Adams wishes war with France, nor do I
believe he will truckle to England." That was good enough for Talleyrand.
In any event, where could the United States find warships to match the
naval might of France? To keep her on the defensive was obvious strategy,
out of which might weH come a douceur or two. Americans were good
economists and how much cheaper to bribe the Directory than to fight
France!

3. The Making Up of Minds

When Pinckney's report of the treatment accorded him in Paris reached
President Adams, he reacted strongly. France's action, he thought, indicated
a complete rift to be followed by war. The spectacular successes of the
French army in Italy under young Bonaparte had led to rumors that the
continental coalition against France would soon collapse, and had aroused
grave fears for tihe future of England, and eventually of America. The arch-
Federalist, Geoige Cabot; in a letter written in April 1797, gloomily recppnts
a conversation in which, replying to the statement that tfc pwer of Eng-

[ 140] SHADOW OF THE FUTURE 1793-1802

land was at an end, he said, "All the civilized world would have cause to
mourn if this should be true, for they would then be obliged to fight against
Fiance or give tip their independence/' The President saw no alternative
to preparations for war, even though he still hoped to avoid it A special
session of Congress, he felt, was required.

In the interval before the Congressmen assembled he consulted with
Pickering and others among his chief advisers as to the strategy to be fol-
lowed. They were for the most part eagerly pessimistic, rubbing their hands
over the unfortunate necessity of fighting France. Adams found more con-
structive value in a letter which he just then received from Joel Barlow, the
American writer and sometime diplomat, and friend of republican France.
Barlow, who was in Paris, suggested that the French might be willing to
accept an American mission, the composition of which was not inimical to
her. This idea attracted Adams, but his Cabinet roundly opposed it,, espe-
cially Secretary of State Pickering, and the Secretaries of the Treasury and
of War, Wolcott and McHenry. They held that the President was being
duped, that America ought to go instantly to Britain's side against the
terrible threat from France. McHenry argued that Adams "did not or would
not perceive that the object of the French Government in this machinery
was to obtain instead of being obliged to send a minister." He criticized the
President's "precipitancy in taking the bait."

For a time it looked as if Federalist pressure might overcome Adams's
disposition to peace. Here, however, he had unexpected help from Hamilton,
who insisted that before the country went to war,, France should be given
an opportunity to receive another mission. If she refused, Americans could
no longer doubt that their government had done all it could for peace. The
country would then be united for war in alliance with England. Pickering
and tibe others were pushed by this reasoning into grudging co-operation
with Adams, and the question then became, who should be sent to Paris?

Ptncfcaey had to be one of the mission; national dignity demanded as
HniiGb, whether the French liked it or not It seemed to Adams that a moder-
ate Republican known to be friendly to France was also essential to the
purpose, Pickering growled his opposition to "a piebald commission," but
was overruled. The Cabinet canvassed several names, and sounded out
Madison, who declined* and Jefferson, who declined also. Both felt that
their country and their party were in great danger, and their leadership
needed at home; and each suspected a Federalist plot to entangle him in a
politically disastrous undertaking.

Finally Adams turned to an old friend, wealthy Elbridge Gerry of Massa-
chusetts, who was a Republican, and whose famil/s shipowning interests
were deeply involved in trade with France. His place on the mission settled,
the third appointment had to go to a Federalist acceptable to the Harnfl-

x y z [ 141 ]

tomans, yet not marked as an enemy of France. At the suggestion of Geoige
Washington, the name of the rising Virginia lawyer, John Marshall, was
considered. Marshall just then urgently needed money which his Richmond
law practice could not provide, and the $20,000 emolument offered to him
as commissioner would solve the problem for him.

When Congress convened, Adams, in a rousing address, declared his in-
tention to convince France "that we are not a degraded people, humiliated
under a colonial spirit of fear and sense of inferiority." He sharply rebuked
the President of the French Directory, Banas, for derogatory remarks which
he had made about the American government He asked Congress to create
a navy and to fortify American harbors for defense. But in the end he
came to the three-man mission which he proposed to send to Paris.

The Republicans in Congress approved the Presidents nominations be-
cause they hoped the mission would succeed, and the Federalists because
they hoped it would fail. Thereafter, Gerry and Marshall left by separate
ships to join Pinckney. Marshall, taking advantage of his new status, pro-
vided himself "with a plenty of excellent porter, wine and brandy," as he
told his wife; but for all that, he did not enjoy the prospect; neither diplo-
macy nor foreign travel was to his taste. "Oh God, how much time and
happiness I have thrown awayl" he wrote to his family from Paris a few
months later.

4. The Tatteyrand Gambit

A copy of the Presidents speech was delivered to Talleyrand before the
new mission arrived in Paris,, and he found some of its language offensive,
as coming from a young upstart nation "no more important than Genoa"
to glorious France. If there had been any question in his mind as to the
procedure to follow with the Americans, it was now resolved. He would go
as far as he could to make the President eat his words short of war. For
the period immediately ahead, at least, there were too many other commit-
ments for the arms of France. With Prussia already out of the war, once
Austria withdrew an invasion of England might be undertaken. And Talley-
rand and Barras were also encouraging Bonaparte, who was becoming a
little too popular and independent for their taste, in an ambitious plan of
his to take an army to Egypt cut England's Mediterranean trade routes,
and conquer the Middle East for France. While all this was going on, some
easement of the troubles with America was indicated -but not until after
the Americans had had a little lesson in the higher diplomacy. And not
until the French privateers had been given more time for their raids on the
American shipping lanes. Part of the profits thus obtained went to the
Directory so let the good work goi (ml By June 1797* when

[ 142 ] SHADOW OF THE FUTURE 1793-1802

peace mission was en route to France, the recent French decree had re-
sulted in the seizure of 316 American vessels.

The first meeting between Talleyrand and the three envoys was at his
office, when they presented their credentials. He found them an interesting
study in contrasting types Pinckney a plump man of affairs with a courtly
style; Marshall big, dark, and close-mouthed; the Bostonian Gerry,, whom
Talleyrand had known in America, small and slim, with an inquisitive nose.
All of than he regarded as personalities of the second rank, and not worth
much of his time. His strategy wait into effect at once. He regretted to
have to tdl them that he was deeply occupied at the moment in preparing
a report for the Directory on France's relations with the United States; he
had no time for prolonged discussion just then; they would hear from him.

Surprised and uneasy at this cavalier reception, the Americans let a few
days go by before trying to see the minister again. Their request was ignored.
They tried once more and were given an excuse so perfunctory as to be
insulting. Still they tried, only to be met with the open contempt of Talley-
rand's clerks. The psychological pressure on than was increased when they
were visited by deputations of their countrymen, merchants and sea captains
who had been brought into French ports with their captured ships, and who
were desperate for help and advice. At last, however, a note came from a
minor official of the Foreign Office. For the Foreign Minister himself to
take time for negotiation with America was just then out of the question,
he told them. Certain persons had been designated to deal with them; they
would hear in good time.

More days passed; then one evening a gentleman appeared, and intro-
duced himself as Jean Conrad Hottinguer, at their service, a Swiss, a friend
of the Foreign Minister. His name was known to Marshall, for Hottinguer
had raised money for a Virginia land speculation from which the lawyer
had once hoped to benefit. It was almost certainly this tenuous connection,
rather than the man's meager talents, which had caused Talleyrand to select
Hottinguer for the opening gambit* His manna: was conspiratorial, stagy,
a little ridiculous; he alternated between hushed tones and strident elo-
quence. But what he said was plain enough. The President* s speech to the
Congress had been studied by the Directory, and had aroused the utmost
irritation. Before the envoys could be received, passages of that speech
would have to be softened, the wound assuaged, evidence given of America's
friendship toward the nation to which she owed so much. If this evidence
were sufficiently concrete, negotiations could proceed. A sum of 1^200^000
livres, or $240,000, would first have to be given to Talleyrand for distribution
to the Directory. All that was required thereafter was an apology for the
President's speech, a loan to the French Republic, akd witibdia^ by

XYZ [143]

America of all claims of her citizens against France arising from the ship
seizures.

The Americans restrained themselves, they did not rise in their wrath,
but their attitude was sufficiently clear. Hottinguer went away disappointed,,
and for the next move, Talleyrand decided to use a stronger instrument
This was a French banker, a M. Bellamy, who had recently been in Ham-
burg, arranging for the terms of that state's capitulation to the Directory.
He came with a copy of Adams's controversial speech, from which he read
aloud the passages that had given offense. The Americans, he said, must
realize that they were inviting nothing less than a disastrous war. The hopes
of their mission depended on their willingness to give "satisfaction" to the
Directory that is, an apology. The negotiation could not proceed other-
wise. Then according to Pinckney's account, he added, "But I will not con-
ceal from you that, this satisfaction being made, the essential part of the
treaty remains to be adjusted. You must pay money, you must pay a great
deal of money."

How much money? Bellamy repeated Hottinguefs figure for the douceur
$240,000. Although less than customary, this sum would be acceptable. A
loan must thereafter be made, in the form of purchases of bonds of the New
Dutch Republic which French arms had established say, to the amount
of 32,000^000 florins then approximately $4,000,000.

He seemed hardly able to believe his ears when Pinckney said that such
payments were out of the question. Subsequently a note came from him,
urging their prompt action, for Austria had capitulated to the French armies,
and all the might of France could now be thrown against her remaining
enemies. This letter went into a fik, to which the envoys later added other
notes from Talleyrand's emissaries, together with detailed accounts of all
their conversations. With Bellamy making no progress,, yet another go-
between appeared, Lucien Hauteval, a Swiss who had grown rich in the
French West Indies. But his statement varied hardly at all from Bellam/s,
and was met by the Americans with the same bleak lack of response.

5. "No, No, Not a Sixpencef

The moral issue did not trouble the Americans nearly so much as the
political dangers involved. The pro-French Gerry, in fact, was inclined to
think the sum demanded as a bribe quite reasonable, and an indication
that Talleyrand was not planning to let the money go beyond his own
office. As he wrote to Jefferson a few years later,, explaining his motivations,
"Fifty thousand pounds which as a douceur to be divided among tfoe
Directory would at that time have been spurned by them, might have
answered the puiposes of M. Talleyrand and the principal officers of his
bureau." , , , ,

[ 144] SHADOW OF THE FUTURE 1793-1802

Another meeting followed, a dinner, at which all six men were present.
Hottinguer once more took the lead. He reviewed France's triumphant
position on the continent. The Allied armies had been broken. Her tri-
umph on the Continent was unquestioned. England could be considered as
beaten. What, then, of America's relation to victorious Fiance? Why should
her envoys be surprised because the Directory had decided to take a more
determined tone with her? In the world which the French Republic was
reshaping, there could be no more neutrals. Those who were not for France
were against her, and would be treated as enemies. The American mission,
if they wished peace, needed to win the goodwill of the French Directory,
not only by concessions in policy, but specifically by tangible payments
and loans.

Receiving only a vague response, Hottinguer became impatient. "Gentle-
men," he burst out finally, "you do not speak to the point. It is money-
it is expected that you will offer money."

Marshall said he thought they "had spoken to that point very explicitly "

"No," said Hottinguer, "no, you have not. What is your answer?"

This was more than Pincfcney could bear. "It is No!" he said sharply.
"No, not a sixpence!"

Hottinguer and his friends asked the Americans to think again. Nothing,
they urged, could be done in France without money. Bellamy stressed the
fact that Hamburg and other European states had been compelled to buy
a peace. Was it not evident that America would find the same strategy
profitable?

The Americans were equally emphatic: M. Talleyrand should understand
that their country ardently wished peace with France, but her national
honor was even dearer to her. She had a right to be neutral; she would not
lend France money under coercion; she would fight before she would sur-
render her independence.

Bellamy, realizing that the opposition was coming from Marshall and
Pinckney, asked to meet with them alone. With the utmost earnestness he
reminded them of Fiance's military power, and the injuries which she could
inflict on the United States. Remember, he urged them, the recent fate of
the Republic of Venice when she insisted on her neutrality, and failed to
heed the warnings of Bonaparte. The helpless city had |>een handed over
by him to Austria, as part of the treaty under which most of Italy had be-
come a satrapy of France.

"You may believe," he said, according to Pinckne/s account, "that on
exposing to your countrymen the Unreasonableness of the demands of this
government, they will unite in resenting them. You are mistaten. You
ought to know that the diplomatic skill of France, and the jneaw$ she
possesses in America are sufficient to enable her, with the French party iq

XYZ

America, to throw the blame which will attend the rapture of these ne-
gotiations on the Federalists."

The retort of the Americans was unyielding. The conduct of France^
they said,, was provocative and hostile. She had not received America's
envoys, not permitted them "to utter the amicable wishes of their country "
Hers was "the haughty style of a master." The Americans had been "told
that unless they pay a sum to which their resources scarcely extend, they may
expect vengeance . . ." Their self-respect would permit no further com-
munication through intermediaries.

So they wrote to the minister again, waited two weeks, received no answer,
sent Pinckney's private secretary in person with a note, were curtly told
once more that the Americans would hear from Talleyrand when he was
ready. To their astonishment, the minister's next representative turned out
to be a woman, Mme. de Villette, mature and charming, who had known
Voltaire, and was on familiar terms with Talleyrand. The lonely Americans
accepted her gracious invitations with more gratitude, one suspects, than
can be read in their reports. She entertained them at luncheon one week,
at dinner the next, and with well-seasoned food and old wine, with a witty
anecdote and a winning compliment, with a hint here and a pretty impor-
tunity there, she tried to soften their attitude. Gerry especially found her
society delightful, and he and Marshall accepted her invitation to make
their lodging in her comfortable house; but she made no more headway with
them than had Hottinguer, Bellamy, and HautevaL

It was through Mme. de Villette that they met Talleyrand's next spokes-
man, the great Pierre Beaumarchais himself. His claims on their esteem
were considerable: as a benefactor, for he had been the organizer of the
unofficial French aid given to the Americans in the first years of their
Revolution; as a client, for Marshall was acting as his kwyer in a lawsuit
against the American government to recover some of the money which he
had advanced; as a playwright, for all of them knew The Barber of Seville
and The Marriage of Figaro. He gave an impressive dinner for the Ameri-
cans, who in return gave one for him. The persistent Bellamy thereafter
came forward with a new proposal, aimed primarily at Marshall. The
solution had been found the Americans would after all preserve their
scruples, while Talleyrand would receive his douceur. It was very simple.
Let it be arranged that Beaumarchais should win his case in the American
courts. He would then take it upon himself to pay Tallejrrand the reqtpred
$240^000 out of his own pocket. When the Americans explained that stich
% scheme, while perhaps possible IB France, ram counter to their principles
and to tie ways of American courts, which were independent of the
Bellamy was hurt and incredulous,

[ 146 ] SHAJDOW OF THE FUTURE 1793-1802

But time was running out, and against the Americans. Nearly six months
had passed since their arrival, with French seizures of American vessels con-
tinuing, and President Adams impatient for results. Talleyrand was be-
coming more and more powerful in France, for General Bonaparte, the
nation's new hero, had publicly displayed his friendship for the Foreign
Minister.

Speaking one day to Marshall and Pinckney in Bellamy's presence, Gerry
proposed that he call in person on Talleyrand to invite him to dine a
social call, as a friend who had exchanged visits with him in Boston. His
associates were less than enchanted with this idea they did not trust or like
Gerry or his Republican politico but they could hardly stand in his way.
Bellamy, who had been looking for a chance to see Gerry without the others,
volunteered to go with him to the Foreign Office, On the way he warned
Gerry that the French navy stood poised to bombard and ravage American
coastal cities if no arrangements were made. Gerry was shocked and angered.
On coming into Talleyrand's office he asked him point-blank whether
Bellamy had been authorized to speak for him. That was so,, said Talley-
rand; but he was apparently thinking only of the financial propositions
which had been made in his name. To show his familiarity with those propo-
sitions, he wrote out in his own hand the suggested terms for the purchase
of Dutch bonds, and showed them to Gerry. But he said nothing of the
douceur, and a moment later he burned the paper on which he had written.

6. Seduction of cm American

In spite of Gerry's efforts to soften Talleyrand, the position of affairs did
not change. After another month, Pinckney and Marshall gave up hope of
a treaty, and the record which they were preparing for the President became
their chief interest To complete their file, they drafted a long letter to
Talleyrand, recapitulating all of America's complaints against France. They
had some difficulties with Gerry,, at this point, for he still thought that they
ought to negotiate; the letter, he felt, was unnecessarily provocative. Finally,
however, they argued him down, and it was sent. For weeks Talleyrand did
not bother to reply. Instead, he allowed action to speak for him. The day
after he received the letter, the Directory put into effect a new decree
against American shippingone which went beyond all previous experi-
ence. It instructed French warships to seize not only American vessels carry-
ing supplies to the enemy, but even those which were bringing British
goods to the United States; and it forbade the entry into France of any
American ship whose manifest showed that it had touched at British ports.

Having shown the mice his claws, Talleyrand now offered a little hope.
He met with the three Americans once, twice, and again; they all repeated

X Y Z [ 147 J

themselves to boredom, and nothing was accomplished. Then, finally, he
replied to their letter, writing, it was clear, krgely for the record. The blame
for the prolonged misunderstanding between their countries was to be put
wholly on the American government, which had thought proper to send to
France as envoys "persons whose opinions and connections were too well
known to expect from them dispositions sincerely conciliatory." He con-
trasted the selection of the American mission with the sending of John Jay
to the court of St. James's. Many an American, he knew, would agree. Then
in a few concluding sentences, he proposed to deal with the one among the
commissioners "who could be considered the most impartial/*

In this bid for Gerry's collaboration, Talleyrand was reinforced by the
knowledge that the new decree had hurt the American in more than his
patriotic feelings. Under it, a number of his family's ships were liable to
confiscation. Nevertheless, after heated discussion with Marshall and Pinck-
ney, Gerry joined in signing a reply, in which they said, "No one of the
undersigned is authorized to take upon himself a negotiation evidently en-
trusted by the tenor of their powers and instructions to the whole; nor are
there any two of them who can propose to withdraw . . . while there re-
mains a possibility of performing" their task.

Talleyrand felt that he knew better. That same day, April 3, 1798, he
wrote to Gerry, saying that he supposed "Messrs. Pinckney and Marshall
have thought it useful and proper ... to quit the territory of the republic."
On that assumption, he expressed himself ready "to resume our reciprocal
communications." Gerry could no longer resist temptation. He had no
authority to negotiate alone, he told Talleyrand, but he would remain in
Paris to confer informally. This decision he justified to the others on the
ground that if he were to leave, if the negotiations were to colkpse com-
pletely, France, as Talleyrand had threatened, would declare war on the
United States. Pinckney "warmly remonstrated"; Marshall lost his temper;
but Gerry could not be budged.

Talleyrand had succeeded in splitting the American commission, but the
douceur was now lost forever. He let his disappointment and vindictiveness
show as Pinckney and Marshall prepared to leave Paris. Pinckney's daughter,
who was with him, had become seriously ill, and had been sent to the
south of France. When Pinckney asked for permission to visit her there,
he was not refused, but he was kept dangling in Paris for frustrating weeks.
Marshall received even more mortifying treatment. His application for the
safe-conduct and passport essential to his departure was made a footiW! in
the Frendi Foreign Office, and it was only after the sport tod become
somewhat tedfious for its cterks that lie was finally allowed to board sJ4|> fip*
home in late April 1798.

[ 148 ] SHAIK3W OF THE FTJTXJRE 1793-1802

j. Dome Militdre

All this time, "His Rotundity/' as Republican newspapers called John
Adams, was in a state of understandable impatience. Owing to adversities
of the transatlantic crossing, a detailed report from his envoys in Paris did
not reach him until March. When he finally heard of Talleyrand's demands
for an apology, a loan, and a bribe,, he was outraged in his feelings as
President, but as a Federalist could not help but see the political possibilities
of the situation. That publication of the dispatch would touch off a
patriotic explosion costly to the Republican party was certain. Pickering
counseled its immediate release. The President hesitated; he wished, he
said, first to make sure that the persons of his three commissioners were
safe. Meanwhile he reported to Congress that although every honorable
effort had been made, the mission had failed. Let Congress therefore adopt
measures "for the defence of any exposed portions of our territory"; and
raise moneys for additional naval vessels and arsenals.

Jefferson, who as yet knew nothing of the report from the Paris mission,
thought the President's message to Congress "insane." "So extraordinary a
degree of impetuosity," he felt, could not be justified. But as Vice-President
an office which he described as "honorable and easy," in contrast to the
President's "splendid misery" he could do nothing. Although the House
temporized on some of the proposed military expenditures, it voted appro-
priations for three frigates. Meanwhile, rumors of the report had begun to
circulate, and the congressmen were agog to find out its details. No strategy
could have helped the Federalists more than Adams's apparent reluctance
to release it. The Republicans, even Jefferson, felt sure that his only reason
for delay was that it contained nothing to justify his demand for armaments.
In consequence, a resolution calling upon the President to "produce the
papers" was introduced in the House and carried. Federalists who were in
the President's confidence could hardly restrain their joy at this Republican
blunder. "In the name of God, let them be gratified," chortled one of them
as he voted for the resolution. After allowing the Republicans to urge him
once or twice more, Adams consented to send the file to Congress.

The report as penned by Marshall and Pinckney, who were its chief
authors, was incendiary enough, but the President made the one slight
alteration necessary to give it maximum propaganda value. In the documents
read in Congress, the names of Hottinguer, Bellamy, and Hauteval had
been removed, and in their place appeared the mysterious initials, X, Y,
and Z. It was a master stroke. The words "X Y Z Papers" took on instant
magic, a one-second description of French perfidy and justification of
Federalist policy. The Republicans were stunned as they read. It came to
Jefferson and Madison that from the beginning of the mission tiiis was the

XYZ

moment toward which the Federalists had been working, that they had
never seriously looked for peace with France, but only for an exposure of
Republicans as doubtful patriots. So far as Hamilton was concerned, the
suspicion was almost certainly correct. His advocacy of the mission in private
talks with prominent Federalists had been entirely in terms of practical
political benefits to be derived. But even he could hardly have anticipated
the scope of the windfall It came at a time when Federalist sentiment
seemed to be on the ebb, when the Republican power in the country was
growing swiftly under the tonic guidance of Jefferson and Madison. If any-
thing could blight their hopes, it was the XYZ Papers. The Jeffersonians
were disgraced and discredited, Hamilton thought, forever. In terms of
political appeal,, what were the aggressions of Grenville compared to the
insults of Talleyrand?

As the hail of criticism descended, many Republicans in the Congress
ran for cover, switching their votes on all French questions to the Federalists.
Despondently, Jefferson wrote to Madison, "Giles, Clopton, Cabell and
Nicholas have gone, and Clay goes tomorrow ... In this state of things,
they will carry what they please." It seemed to him that war with France
could no longer be avoided. A last-ditch Republican resolution designed
to permit Gerry to negotiate alone with Talleyrand was overwhelmingly
defeated. The Federalist press screamed its triumph. The government paid
to have ten thousand copies of the XYZ Papers distributed throughout the
country. Swiftly the war fever mounted. Even some Quakers threw over-
board their pacifism and joined in the national frenzy. Pinckney's remark,
"No, no, not a single sixpence," was embellished by patriots into "Millions
for defense, but not one cent for tribute," and was shouted at every street
corner. (The public did not know and might not have cared if it had
known that an American ship was then on its way to Algiers with twenty-
six barrels of dollars as a tribute for the Dey.) A new popular song swept
the country and opened the floodgates of such a sentimental torrent as
America had not previously seen. In theaters, in taverns, and in the streets,
the people* with tears of fervor in their eyes, adulated themselves in song:

Hail Columbia! Happy land.

Hail ye heroes, heaven-born bandl

Night after night, men sitting at dinner raised their glasses to such toasts
as "Adams and Liberty!" "May the American eagle pluck out the gills of
the Gallic code!" "A fig for the French and the sly Talleyrand!" The arrival
of John Marshall from France at this opportune mopient lifted him ftti
nationwide feme; wherever he went, crowds cheered Mm, tends played in
Ms how*; orators called him another Gedrge Washington. WasMngtoo
Mmseif , wtlrip two years of death, was brought out of retirarneiiti

[ 150] SHADOW OF THE FOTUKE 1793-1802

to become commander in chief of an army for which Congress was to pro-
vide large sums.

Now began a curious Donse Militdre in the government, with the right-
wing Federalists calling the tune. It was Washington's desire that Hamilton
be made his second in command, which for practical purposes meant the
acting head of the Army. Adams, full of resentments against Hamilton,
tried to resist; but found no support except among his enemies, the
Republicans. His Federalist cabinet was unanimously against him. With
poor grace, he finally conferred the requested rank of major general on
Hamilton. But the thought of the ambitious Hamilton leading the Ameri-
can Army was almost as obnoxious to the President as it was to Jefferson.
He saw a sinister purpose behind Hamilton's and Washington's insistence.
He could not believe that they seriously feared for the military safety of the
United States. The French forces were fully occupied in Europe and Egypt.
There was, Adams wrote, "no more prospect of seeing a French army here
than in heaven/' He could guess at Hamilton's purpose to use war against
France as an excuse to attack the American colonies of her ally, Spain to
conquer New Orleans and West Florida. There was even a proposal to
venture the Army of the United States in Francisco de Miranda's long-
heralded South American revolt; Hamilton was corresponding with Miranda
and with the American minister to Engknd, Rufus King, with this purpose,
and Pickering also knew of the plan. Success on so vast a scale would make
Hamilton the new national hero, and from that pinnacle to step to the
Presidency would be easy for him. Already the British anticipated such a
development A future alliance with the United States was openly sug-
gested in the British press. As soon as Hamilton's appointment as major
general was announced England sent ova: a large quantity of cannon; the
Admiralty arranged for an exchange of naval signals with American naval
vessels; land a member of the royal family suggested that the British lend
America a squadron of warships. With so much power in the hands of im-
patient Hamilton and his fire-breathing friends, who could tell what the
end would be? "There may arise" Adams wrote gloomily, if muddfly, "an
enthusiasm that seems little to be foreseen." And again, "Tou cannot im-
agine what a horror some persons are in, lest peace should continue."

Fear of Hamilton's ascendancy, almost as much as his belief in the
virtues of neutrality, held Adams back from a declared war on France. War
would have made him more popular, but he sensed that it would apothe-
osize Hamilton. Adams had almost been cheated out of the Presidency by
Hamilton's machinations in 1796; he did not intend to lose his second term
in 1800. This is not to say that he allowed their feud to dictate the national
policy. He sincerely believed that America's interests would be best served
by peace. He was a genuine neutral. His anger at corrupt France did not

X Y Z

make him forget his lifelong hostility to haughty England. One was as
inimical to America as the other. Of all the leaders then in American public
life, Adams was at that moment the most balanced and even-minded.
Nevertheless even he might have bent to the hurricane and given the people
the war they wanted if personal resentment of Hamilton had not stiffened
his resistance.

It needed to be stiff. The steaming emotions of the country had no escape
valve. Congress was racing wildly toward war. It passed a law virtually for-
bidding Americans to trade with France. It declared the treaties of 1778 to
be void, having been violated by France. The Cabinet^ working with Hamil-
ton, drafted a speech for the President in which he was to affirm his
determination not to make a new attempt at negotiation with France. There
was every expectation that he would make his speech as written, and by so
doing commit himself to the war party. But the Federalist leaders did not
quite know their Adams. The President asserted himself by striking out the
critical passage, and saying instead that he would never send another
minister to France unless it was certain "that he will be received, respected
and honored." Federalists were horrified by the hint that negotiation was
still possible. Adams had deliberately played into the hands of Jefferson,
who was striving feverishly to hold his party in line for steps short of war.
Albert Gallatin took advantage of the President's moderation to make a
remarkable speech in the House, sobering the representatives with the warn-
ing that the European war was coming to a close^ and "it is not to our
interest to enter into it."

In the decisive test, Congress, by a narrow vote, limited hostilities against
Fiance to defensive action. French warships and privateers operating against
American commerce were to be captured, but French merchantmen were
not to be attacked. For most Americans, it was a small distinction, but for
purposes of diplomacy it was large enough to prevent open war and to shape
future history.

8. The Devious Route to Peace

The late summer of 1798 found Citizen Talleyrand a good deal less full
of himself than he had been a year earlier. France's Mediterranean fleet had
just been demolished at Aboukir by Horatio Nelson; Bonaparte in Egypt
was blockaded, and reports from him had almost ceased; English money
and intrigue were known to be forming a new continental coalition against
France^ this time with Russian participation; dissension and plots threatened
"the Directory from day to day; the greed of Barras had becpine insatiable,
and was threatening to swallow half the wealth of France, Uikfec these
conditions, the dispatches from America made unpalatable reading, the
intensity of the reaction to the XYZ affair amazed Talteyrpjid: 'whso v^wlcl

SHADOW OF THE FUTTOE 1793-1802

have thought the Americans to be so naive? Reports from London said that
the men of Whitehall, in their clubs, were toasting "Citizen Talleyrand,
and Citizens X, Y, and Z, in gratitude for their aid to England." Even at
home there was criticism of him: worse, there was laughter. He was familiar
with the killing power of ridicule in politics, and hastily he composed a
formal rebuttal to the charges of the American envoys. With an air of injury,
he wrote of republican France's rebuffs at America's hands the favoritism
shown to England in the Jay treaty the cold animosity of Pinckney and
Marshall. "It was wished that they should come forward with some un-
equivocal proof of their attachment to our cause: a cause which was but
recently their own. Our finances at that time required us to sell a certain
number of Batavian bonds . . . The Minister of Foreign Affairs gave them
[the Americans] to understand that an offer made by them to buy up a
quantity of these bonds would be regarded as a friendly act." He deprecated
Messrs. X, Y, and Z as "intriguing politicians" who were "eager to intoxicate
the Americans with the idea of their own importance/' but who had no
authority to speak for him. But as to the $240,000 cash payment which had
been demanded, or of the blackmailing threat of bombardment, there was
nothing to say except to deny knowledge of them, and this Talleyrand did.
The pamphlet was published at once in Paris and somewhat later was
translated into English and printed in London.

The fact was that Talleyrand had miscalculated; he had not expected
America to put so high a valuation on national honor; or to be capable of
unified action. The source of his error was identified in a letter written to
the Directory by one of the more penetrating of the French diplomatic
observers then in the United States, Louis-Guillaume Otto. "Our agents
wished to see only two parties in the United States, the French party and the
English party; but there is a middle party, much larger, composed of the
most estimable men . . . the American party which loves its country above
all and for whom preferences for France or for England are only accessory
and often passing affections."

A gambler always, Talleyrand knew how to accept an adverse roll of the
dice. To allow affairs to drift was unwise. A limited war, such as America
contemplated, could exceed its limits overnight and this at a time when
France had no warships or soldiers to spare. Besides, a more amicable
relation with America might soon prove important in another connection.
Faltering Spain could never hold its Louisiana territory in the face of an
American invasion. By careful manipulation, her North American colonies
might be transferred to the French flag, and to this end the acquiescence
of the United States was, if not essential, at least desirable. In any event,
it was better not to stimulate any further expansion of the American army
and navy.

XYZ [153]

President Adams had left a door open, hinting that he might after aH
negotiate if assured that his envoys would this time be received with respect,
honor, and so forth. Why not? Nevertheless, it would not do to give the
Americans too much encouragement all at once. Talleyrand's amour-
propre demanded that he show resentment of the atrocious references to
himself in the debates of the Congress. He sent for Gerry, whom he had
kept in France against just such an emergency. The interview began with
some histrionics a little cursing, a little shouting, a little vituperation of
America. To his surprise, little Gerry retorted with flashing eyes and biting
words. Talleyrand instantly changed his tone. Ah, well, he said, it was all a
mistake, an extraordinary misunderstanding. America should not assume
that France was her enemy on the contrary, the French government
wanted only peace and friendship with the United States would receive
her ministers with good will. If Gerry would carry these thoughts to President
Adams, passports would at once be provided for his return to Boston. The
American accepted gladly, and was on his way.

Talleyrand knew, however, that Gerry, as a Republican and a discredited
ambassador, was unlikely to have much influence on anyone in the Federalist
administration except, perhaps, his friend the President Another and
sounder channel was needed. The American minister in Holland^ William
Vans Murray, was known to stand high in Adams's favor. Talleyrand sent
off a note to the French minister at the Hague, Pichon, with detailed in-
structions for a message to be given to Murray for the President. Advances
made by the United States for a negotiation with France, the message said,
would be received by France in a friendly spirit

The event Justified the effort. Murray's letter to Adams arrived only a
few days after Gerry had called on the President at his home in Quincy;
and it corroborated Gerry's account of Talleyrand's change in attitude.
Adams was at that time conferring with Pickering and others in his Cabinet
on his next message to Congress, in which the quarrel with France was to
be reviewed. Over their dismayed protest, he decided to include a sentence
which carried a distinct implication of a desire for peace: "Whether we
negotiate with her or not, vigorous preparations for war will be alike in-
dispensable/' There, however, he stopped. Before he would commit him-
self further, he wanted additional reassurance; for the message from Talley-
rand, as Adams wrote to Murray* had after all come at second hand. In
February 1799,, Murray replied, enclosing an official dispatch from Talley-
rand to Pichon. Any plenipotentiary whom tie United States wcwfi "sead to
France to settle their differences, wrote the Foreign Mfafetefy ^w$e!d
positively be received with the regard due to the rfepiesentefive of a
free, sovereign and powerful action."

'Adansta 'doubts were Jnow sufiofer^Jf aHayed so ttaC

[154] SHADOW OF THE FUTURE 1793-1802

He had come to distrust Pickering and the others in his Cabinet as out-
right agents of Hamilton, so that he would no longer consult with them;
and moving with a boldness reminiscent of his younger days, he sent a
message to the Senate^ nominating Murray to be minister to France,

9. "Shocked and Grieved 9

Horror is not too strong a word to express the Federalist reaction. Hastily
Secretary of State Pickering wrote to Hamilton: "We have all been shocked
and grieved ... I beg you to be assured that it is wholly his [the Presi-
dent's] own act, without any participation or communication with any of
us ..." A similar letter from Sedgwick, the Federalist senatorial leader,
called Adams's action "false and insidious/' embarrassing and ruinous.
George Cabot, speaking with the voice of authority, considered the Murray
appointment "impolitic, unjustifiable, dangerous and inconsistent," and a
reason for opposing Adams's renomination for the presidency. Secretary of
the Treasury Wolcott, writing to Cabot, went further: "If the strange and
disastrous course taken ... is to be pursued ... a war with Great Britain
is hardly avoidable/' The President's pretense of "impartial and independ-
ent sentiments" was only a foundation for "an address to the latent
animosities of our people against the English."

To Cabot and his friends negotiation with republican France automati-
cally implied a rise of "anarchy" in America. His innermost thoughts in the
matter came out in a letter to Hamilton, in which he warned that Adams
was "but little attached to the support of the public credit and the rights of
property." Further proof, if it was needed, of the President's iniquitous
disregard for the rich and the well-born lay in the fact that he had just spared
the life of a German-born Pennsylvania agitator named Fries, who had been
sentenced to death by the courts for trying to organize resistance to federal
tax collectors.

In their astonishment and confusion, the senatorial right-wing leaders
made a move which, in the long run, was to be fatal to their hopes. If they
had let the Murray nomination come to the loor of the Senate, it might
have been defeated, but they wanted more: they wanted the President to
withdraw it. To this purpose, five Federalist senators of the Foreign Re-
lations Committee called in a body on Adams. The President faced them
with a sharp rebuke: they were violating his Constitutional prerogative, he
thought. Sedgwick, who was one of the group* admitted that their visit
was irregular, and suggested that it be considered unofficial. To this the
President agreed. But on no account, he said, would he withdraw the nomi-
nation, and if it was rejected by the Senate, he would propose another
three-man mission to go to Paris, with Murray one of the three. Enraged,
the senators retired to confer, and decided to accept the President's chal-

XYZ [155]

lenge by voting down the nomination. But before the issue reached the
point of debate in the Senate, the President sent in another message, pro-
posing the two additional names for the Paris mission: Oliver Ellsworth
and Patrick Henry. The Federalist leaders instantly recognized that they
had fallen into a trap of their own making. Murray alone they could have
safely rejected, but hardly the Federalist Chief Justice of the Supreme Court*
or the great Virginia conservative and patriot.

Hamilton's realistic advice to the senators was to accept the situation; it
was, after all, one thing to send a mission, another to make peace. There
could be many a slip. Meanwhile, "the mode must be accommodated with
the President/' The Federalists yielded, voted, and confirmed all three
nominations. Subsequently, the aged Henry declined the appointment, and
Governor William R. Davie of North Carolina went in his place.

Even so, the Hamiltonian faction did not admit total defeat. Pickering
wrote to Murray that before the new envoys could sail Talleyrand would
have to give formal and unequivocal assurance that their reception would
accord with his earlier promise. Prodded by Murray, Talleyrand wrote the
required letter, but could not restrain a remark or two about the "capricious
and insincere" attitude of the American Government. This was all Picker-
ing needed. As soon as he received Talleyrand's letter, he called the Presi-
ent's attention to its impertinent language, Adams's vanity was well known;
Pickering expected indignation from him; but in this instance the President
rose above personal pique. He simply instructed the Secretary of State to
give Ellsworth and Davey their formal directives, and speed them on their
way.

For five weeks more Pickering delayed, hoping for some development
that would render the mission futile. The day arrived when he thought he
had it. Sensational news had been received from France. The armies of the
Second Coalition were driving the French before them. Russian troops
under General Suvarov were master of North Italy. Talleyrand had re-
signed There was a rumor that the Directory was about to fall, that the
Bourbon monarchy would be restored. What purpose now in sending the
mission?

Hamilton, directing the Federalist strategy as usual, felt that the moment
called for a display of force majeure. Adams was then convalescing from a
severe illness. He had left Philadelphia, for the seat of the government was
being transferred to the new capital on the Potomac, Washingtori; but
the presidential TPalace** had not yet bfcen cdmpleted, and fee "ttoli takian'
up residence in Trenton. The President* s weakened condition cM mot deter
Hamilton. With Pickering, WoJcott, and McHtoty as life advance '
he himself calfei uninvited at* A<ba& Misfe, and' ar

[156] SHADOW OF THE FOTTOE 1793-1802

he brought with him the Chief Justice, Oliver Ellsworth, who although he
had accepted a place on the mission, was generally in accord with Hamil-
ton's views of foreign policy. All Hamilton's great powers of persuasion
were exercised in the hope that the sick President would agree to delay the
mission indefinitely, but Adams, keeping his temper, merely listened. When
his unwelcome visitors left, dissatisfied, they had no notion of how deeply
they had incensed him. With his New England dander up, he seized his
pen, sent for a courier, and early the next morning Pickering, Wolcott, and
McHeniy found on their desks peremptory orders to issue the necessary
papers, and instantly provide a frigate to carry Ellsworth and Davey to
France. They had no choice but to resign or obey, and after consultation
with Hamilton, they obeyed.

In later years, Adams was to refer to his decisions on the French mission
as "the most disinterested and meritorious actions" of his life. "I desire no
other inscription over my gravestone," he said, "than 'Here lies John Adams,
who took upon himself the responsibility of peace with France/ "

10. The Hand of Bonaparte

Secretary of State Pickering's obstruction of the new mission to France,
and the resulting delay, came as an unexpected boon to Talleyrand. If the
Americans had come early in 1799, they might have driven a hard bargain.
France's military expectations were then collapsing with terrifying speed on
the continent. Egypt was about to be lost. The French fleet was demoralized;
even the tiny American navy had scored successes against it. In the Carib-
bean the French frigate Llnsurgente had been beaten and captured by
America's CowsteHtftion, under Commodore Traxton, and scores of French
privateers had been ignominiously hauled into American harbors as prizes
of war. France had no ships or men to spare for transatlantic adventures.
An American threat of war at that moment could have extracted many a
concession from the tottering Directory.

Talleyrand's resignation from the Foreign Ministry was no more than a
little jump to separate himself from the d6Mcle which he foresaw. He had
faith in his catlike ability to land on his feet. The only question in his
mind was, after Barras, who? Many persons of influence favored making
the popular General Moreau dictator of France, or perhaps the spectacular
young General Joubert But to Talleyrand^ whose nose for the future was
always keen, the intrigues of Joseph and Lucien Bonaparte in the national
legislature to give power to their absent brother, Napoleon, had the smell
of success. Knowing the hero as he did, Talleyrand considered his early re-
turn from the fizzling Egyptian expedition a good possibility. Unfortunately,
Bonaparte might well hold him partially to blame for having advised the

XYZ [157]

Egyptian venture in the fiist place. To offset this disadvantage, them was
Talleyrand's scheme to acquire Louisiana from Spain without cost a proj-
ect which would be certain to appeal to Napoleon. And where could he
find another Foreign Minister of so much experience and subtlety? The
sensible procedure for a Talleyrand in such a confused situation was to
shake off official responsibility, commit himself to no party,, and keep on
good terms with all, but especially with the Bonapartists. The shrewd pilot
fish knows his sharks.

By the time the three American envoys arrived in Paris, in March 1800,
the kaleidoscope had been shaken again. Russia had withdrawn from the
war; Napoleon had made his spectacular re-entry into France, scored his
coup <Fetat> and become First Consul and virtual dictator. More, he had
got over his annoyance with Talleyrand, and appointed him again Foreign
Minister but with the understanding that he, Napoleon, would assume
direct authority over the policies which Talleyrand was to execute. The
American problem interested him. He had read and approved a memo-
randum from Talleyrand, stressing the desirability, at the moment, of
American good will, while France put herself in position to acquire Loui-
siana. With the proper stimulation from France^ Talleyrand asserted,
America would become "a naval rival to Great Britain/* and perhaps a
decisive influence in the war.

However, his personal feelings about the United States were so bitter,
after the XYZ affair, as to unfit him for negotiation with the new American
mission, and Bonaparte assigned the responsibility for the American treaty
to his brother Joseph, later to become, for a time, the King of Spain. Con-
sequently, when the American envoys called at the French Foreign Office,
Talleyrand hurried them to Napoleon, who pleased them by the warmth of
his greeting, and impressed them by the force of his personality. At the
news of George Washington's death, they learned, he had ordered blade
crpe to be "draped on all the flags and field colors of the Republic for ten
days," as a tribute to greatness. All this was hopeful enough, but as the
Americans settled down to work with Joseph Bonaparte, an awkwardness
appeared. Their instructions, which Pickering had drafted with his tongue
in his cheek, and which Adams, had felt obliged to sign, compelled them
to say that their government insisted on a mutual renunciation of the
treaties of 1778, and on an indemnity of $20,000,000 for ships and sailors
seized by the French. From the standpoint of the new Fiance, the treaties
were of little consequence. But the money was another matter. Napoleon
was not a man to pay out even a small sum if he could help it, let alone am
unthinkable number of millions. The American demand was inadtaissable,
but before flatly saying so, Joseph Bonaparte waited for the ontooiae of the
Italian canijwgn which bis buotibei was then planning. \

[158] SHABOW OF THE FUTURE 1793-1802

The news of the stunning victory over Austria at Marengo some weeks
later produced a sharp rise in French morale and a corresponding weakening
of America's bargaining position. Talleyrand now joined in the conference,
and offered alternative propositions: either the old treaties, with their ex-
traterritorial privileges and their obligations on America would be continued
in force, and the indemnities would be settled by compromise; or there
would be a new treaty, with no indemnities. Unless they chose to break
off the negotiations, the Americans saw, they would have to depart from
their instructions and make concessions. Finally they signed an agreement,
the so-called Convention of 1800. Under it, the old treaties were to become
inoperative, and together with the question of the indemnity were referred
to future negotiation. Each nation undertook to restore all property cap-
tured from the other. Governmental and commercial debts owing on both
sides were to be paid.

ii. Boomerang

The arrival in Washington of the draft of the Convention with France
precipitated a new crisis for President Adams. He was determined that come
what migjit, the treaty would be signed, and to avoid sabotage from within
his own Cabinet, he had ousted Pickering, and appointed John Marshall
as Secretary of State. A new and cunning strategy was then conceived by
the Hamiltonians to prevent ratification of the Convention not to reject
it outrightthey had no satisfactory excuse for that but by emasculating
it, to compel the President himself to reject it Accordingly, they declined
to ratify unless Adams agreed to expunge the article which referred the
question of the Treaties of 1778 and the indemnity to the future. But the
grim President saw the trap and refused to fall into it. He simply signed the
Convention without the disputed clause and sent it back to Paris.

The change made by the Senate did not bother Talleyrand and Bonaparte
at all; but if one change, why not another? Napoleon promptly wrote in a
proviso to the effect that the expunging of the article on the indemnity was
to be taken as an abandonment of claims on both, sides. Murray, Ellsworth,
and Davie were distressed; it came to them that in the Convention as it now
stood, the American government had given up all of ifc$ reasonable and just
claims for indemnity, in order to get rid of two old and bedraggled treaties.
The boomerang^ however, was of America's own hurling. Once more the
modified Convention crossed the Atlantic to the Senate, where* without
fanfare, it was ratified and forgotten. Peace reigned again between the
world's two great republics.

Secretary of the Treasury Wolcott wrote a sorrowing letter to George
Cabot. "I cannot believe that the British government or their merchants

XYZ [159]

will consider It for their interest to permit us to prosecute a free commerce
with France; and if ... our trade shall be interdicted, the United State
will commence or retaliate hostilities." This prophecy, while It needed a
dozen years for fulfillment, was of course exact.

CHAPTER FIVE

Witch Hunt

i. Flank Attack from the Right

The preservation of American neutrality was a moral triumph, perhaps the
only real triumph of Adams's administration. But being only a moral tri-
umph, it was unpopular. The public had been whipped into frothing
expectation of war; and when there was no war, they felt somehow cheated.
Right-wing Federalists were especially bitter. As men like Wolcott and Cabot
could clearly see, the peace with France opened wider the way for the rise
to power of Jefferson, who, in the cool shadows of the vice-presidency, had
been quietly biding his time. The formidable Cabot especially was unwill-
ing to sit back under so terrible a threat He would rather have seen Lucifer
in the Presidency than Jefferson. It was not only that the man was anti-
British and anti-aristocratic. His imaginative, almost speculative approach to
foreign affairs and domestic economy frightened Cabot, and his egalitarian
beliefs promised innovations, the end of which could not be clearly forer-
seen. The right wing feared that a Jeffersonian revolution was in the making
which would alter the entire relationship of the United States to England
and cut away their own wealth and power.

Cabot could not forgive Adams's refusal to go to war against the
Jacobins while an adequate pretext was at hand. Impatiently he dismissed
the argument that America lacked the resources for war against a major
antagonist As he saw it, war would have stimulated business, and business
would have stimulated an irresistible urge to victory. "Avarice," he wrote,
*%ould have fought our battles ... a love of glory would have grown
upon the love of gain/' Like Talleyrand, he was convinced that Americans
would da anything for business.

The great fear in Cabof s mind was that as the cloud of a French war
evaporated, the storm warnings would again point to England; for search
and seizure of American ships by the British was a continuing scandal.
Even more serious* impressment was a growing ame under public opinion
as England sought to make up for her Navy's manpower shortage at
America's expenseA Reports filtering back to the United States told of
violent removal of American sailors from their ships at the caprice of British
officers, and of their physical abuse by men who regarded the cat-o'-nine-tails
as a mild disciplinary tonic. The American people were not interested in
the nice legalistic point that Jay's Treaty, by faffing to mention Impress-

WITCH HUNT [ l6l ]

ment, had provided England with a color of justification for the seizure of
seamen whom she suspected of being British subjects. All they knew was
that Americans were being whipped by Englishmen. Every time a British
frigate exerted its alleged rights over a helpless American merchantman, the
national temperature rose another degree.

Could England be persuaded to moderate her aggressions on American
commerce? Cabot put his ideas on the subject into writing for Wolcott,
who was in close touch with important British officials. An appeal, he felt,
should be made to England's commercial sense. 'This country for half a
century to come may be immensely valuable to Great Britian as a consum-
ing customer,, and this connection would be at least as beneficial to us as to
them. Nothing but violence can interrupt this salutary intercourse. . .Great
Britain ought to be made to see that we will not sacrifice our interests to
our passions . . . that we are not the dupes of her rival . . . that we will
never quarrel with her or embarrass the commercial intercourse with her
while she regulates her own conduct with us by the rales of acknowledged
justice."

But Cabot was not really hopeful that England would respond favorably.
And what if she did not? Was there another way to silence Anglophobe
propagandists of "anarchy"? It seemed to him essential that some way be
found to gag the Jeffersonian opposition. As early as 1796, hints of this
purpose were reflected in his correspondence with Hamilton and others;
and subsequently the seething popular resentment generated by the XYZ
sensation seemed to him to offer an unparalleled opportunity to establish a
far-flung censorship of American opinion.

The Cabot coterie (known also as the Essex Junto, from the name of
the Massachusetts county in which Cabot resided) was small. Fisher Ames,
one of the inner group, once remarked that in the entire country not more
than five hundred men were of his way of thinking. But what they lacked in
numbers, they made up in wealth and influence. If Hamilton would stand
with them, and throw his power into a drive to identify radical Republicans
as subversives, the thing might be done.

As the leader of the entire Federalist party Hamilton had to adjust him-
self to the thinking of such moderates as Adams and Marshall^ but in spirit
he was far closer to Cabot. It has been cynically said that in his efforts to
enlarge his own thin estate he gravitated more and more to the commercial
magnates who could be most useful to him, and so became a tool of New
England reaction. But there is little evidence for such an assertion. His
convictions were his own, and he was never dollar-minded. Hi$ gjwwiBg
impatience with the Adams wing was almost certainly due to genuine alarm
inspired in him by the rise of the Republican^ whom he^ Ife Cabot, equated
with sjodaj disorder and war agjak^t England, la NeW Yotf* mere and; piece

[ 162 ] SHADOW OF THE FUTURE 1793-1802

Republicans were calling themselves Democrats a significant word. Hamil-
ton did not seriously believe, as Cabot and Pickering did, that Jefferson was
contemplating the confiscation of the great estates, and a social revolution
going beyond even that of France, in which the country would be turned
over to the "American Jacobins." Nevertheless, danger was in the air. There
were too many poor. Fanners were having a hard time. The national credit
was low, interest rates had risen to 8 per cent^ prices were falling. Once
people began to forget about XYZ, they would begin to remember their
personal troubles, and to hold them against the government. To make mat-
ters worse, the country was feeling the impact of a new rash of immigrants
from Ireland, where rebellion was being bloodily suppressed by the British.
Many a newly arrived Irishman was finding ready American ears to listen
to his tale of horrors endured at the hands of England's soldiers. Coupled
with French propaganda, the Irish passion was bound to have a political
effect

In 1798, the leading Federalists felt that time was running out, that
it was now or never. Enough Republicans were aligned with the Federal-
ists in the House to give them the majority they needed to supplement
their advantage in the Senate. Another year, another six months might be
too late. Hamilton by nature was disinclined to curtailments of personal
liberty, or of the freedom of the press, but the logic of the situation was
inescapable. If Jay's Treaty was to continue in force, and peace with Eng-
land be preserved, the government of the United States would have to re-
main passive under provocations to which the treaty gave implicit sanction,
such as impressment To this Jefferson as President would never consent;
so that future relations with England, not to mention the social stability of
America* would hinge on the election of 1800. A means^ therefore, had to
be found to block the Republican drive for votes. However objectionable
a direct attack on freedom of the press and of speech might be in theory,
it cocM not be avoided. Nothing must be allowed to destroy peace with
England or interfere with the rights of property.

2. "Let Us Not Be Crud . . ."

A burst of propaganda in New England heralded the new Federalist
policy. Newspapers clamored that the diabolical French had vast numbers
of agents in the country who wore tiying to divide tie American people.
Unless these aliens were jailed or deported the country would fall into such
anarchy as France had experienced. State secrete were being given to the
enemy, true patriots were being slandeced. The drums of panic sounded
louder and louder, they filled the ears of tifae country, until even Jeffersomans
in Congress began to jig to the rhythm. Speech followed speech. The
French had to go. The Irish immigration had to be stopped. The thousands

WITCH HUNT [ 163 ]

of Irishmen who were taking up residence in New York and Boston had
to be held back from the citizenship which would give them the right to
vote for "anarchy." Federalists rose in the excited House of Representatives
to propose that aliens be required to wait fourteen years to become Ameri-
can citizens, instead of five, as in the past; that the President be authorized,
at his discretion, to order out of the country any alien "whom he shall judge
dangerous/' or "shall have reasonable ground to suspect" of endangering
the public peace. And the House approved. The Senate went even farther,
initiating a Sedition Bill which, among its clauses, made American citizens
subject to heavy fine and long imprisonment if they dared "to combine . . .
with intent to oppose any measures of the government of the United States,"
or "to intimidate . . . any person holding office under the government,"
or to organize meetings to oppose these measures, or to publish any writing
against the Congress or the President "with intent to defame them."

Hamilton, Cabot,, Ames, and other Federalist leaders subsequently tried
to avoid personal identification with these bills, the far reach of which
startled many of the Hamiltonians themselves. The Sedition Bill in particu-
lar caused much searching of consciences in Congress, As a remedy, it
seemed more dangerous than the disease it was intended to cure. But most
Federalists were then less interested in freedom of the press than in freedom
from the press. Eager to put an end to the partisan mudslinging of Re-
publican editors, who had recently gone to unprecedented lengths in bo-
spattering the reputations of respectable opponents, they stood in a solid
phalanx behind the Alien and Sedition Bills.

Jefferson issued an impassioned warning against dictatorship~in-the-
making: "If this goes down, we shall immediately see attempted another
act of Congress declaring that the President shall continue in office during
life." But the Federalist^ able to muster a majority in both Houses, trampled
down the opposition. When a Republican congressman declared on the
floor that the Alien Bill "would have disgraced the age of Gothic barbarity;'
Federalists arose to call his speech "evidence of seditious disposition."
When Gallatin reminded the House that the people were devoted to the
Constitution^ and since the Whisky Rebellion had cheerfully submitted to
the nation's laws, so that the Sedition Act was unwarranted, he was sneered
at as "an alien Frenchman." It took a brave man to denounce the biHs,
knowing that, once they became law, he might be tarred forever as a sub-
versive.

The dictatorial powers given to the President by the blls caused no
qualms among the Federalist leaders, Washington privately supported ttci*,
Hamilton made a token show of concern the bills, he thought, wept some-
what too far- "let us not be crud or violent" "energy is a very difeent
thing from viqieaeer But he offered no serious criticism, fie KedosaHst

[ 164] SHADOW OF THE FUTURE 1793-1802

right wing with support from defected Republicans, had the bit in its
teeth, and XYZ had opened the road. Both bills were passed by Congress
and went to the President

The strength which Adams had shown in resisting the pressure toward
war was absent now. Although he expressed misgivings about the bills, he
allowed them to become law, for to have refused would have meant an
open break with the strongest element in his party, and the certainty that
he would be deprived of the second term on which he had set his heart
It was his belief that through temperate administration of the new laws he
could prevent abuses while conciliating the Hamiltonians by a show of
force. The implications of the Alien and Sedition Acts for the future of
his party and his own place in history seem to have escaped him.

With the new laws in force, there was a wave of panic among recently
arrived aliens. Hundreds of Frenchmen promptly left the country. In
Boston, Irish immigrants were assaulted and abused on the streets. The
Federalist press of 1799 burst into joyous doggerel:

"Each factious alien shrinks with dread
And hides his hemp-devoted head;
While Slandeis foul seditious crew
Witfi gnashing teeth retires from view.

Old Dr. Joseph Priestley, scientist, friend of Franklin,, freethinker and
defender of the French Revolution, who had sought sanctuary in America
from the British Government, was denounced as an atheist and a spy, and
threatened with deportation. So were other noted liberals of foreign birth*
Newspapers urged deportations of all aliens who expressed anti-British
sentiments. Even Hamilton said that "the mass of them ought to be
obliged to leave." But the President held to his policy of restraint. After
a few months, the country realized that he had not sent a single alien out
of the country,, and he was accused by ardent Hamiltonians of pitiable
weakness and folly.

But the Sedition Act produced somewhat more satisfactory results for its
authors, producing for a tine something like a reign of terror among Re-
publican publicists. A noted South Carolinian, Aedanus Burke, subse-
quently wrote to Madison that the Sedition Act had "struck into the minds
of men such a dread and panic in this city, there were not ten men to
whom I dared speak my mind . . /' "The despotic insolence with which
one part of our fdlow citizens hunted down tibose who differed from them"
had been, he said, the worst experience of his life, Twenty-five well-known
Republican editors and writers were prosecuted under the act and ten were
convicted, imprisoned,, and fined. These convictions, few as they were,
represented a significant proportion of the elite of Repiiblean fointialisni.

WITCH HUNT [ 165 ]

The charges aired in court seemed to prove all the accusations of petty
egotism which had been leveled against Adams. The guilt of one victim
of the Sedition Act, Lyon of Vermont, a member of the House of Repre-
sentatives, lay essentially in the fact that he had accused the President of
an "unbounded thirst for ridiculous pomp, foolish adulation, and selfish
avarice/' Another was sentenced to six months in prison and a fine of four
hundred dollars for saying that in 1797 Adams had hardly been "in the
infancy of political mistakes/ 7 such as he made in signing the Alien and
Sedition Acts. But the President also looked after the reputations of other
Federalist leaders. One editor was imprisoned for declaring that Hamilton
had tried to buy the famous Republican newspaper Aurora in order to sup-
press it. Adams took especial satisfaction in the jailing of Callender, a cor-
rupt journalist who had for a time been subsidized by Jefferson, and who
wielded one of the country's deadliest poison pens.

Under the influence of these examples, a distinct sobering in the prose
of the Republican press was soon noticeable. The purple adjective gave way
to the qualifying clause, the outright lie was supplanted by the rhetorical
question. Federalist editors, on the other hand, indulged in an orgy of
unpunished libels aimed primarily at Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe. In
their first enthusiasm, some Federalists thought they stood on the threshold
of a new era, from which would emerge an authoritarian, strongly central-
ized government, such as Hamilton had dreamed of from the beginning.
When John Marshall, who was then running for Congress from Virginia,
urged repeal of the Acts, his temerity brought down on him the wrath of
New England's lords of reaction. He was said to have degraded himself.
Newspapers proposed that he be read out of the party. George Cabot con-
temptuously remarked that Marshall had "much to learn on the subject of
a practicable system of free government"

3. "A Naturd Right to Nullify . . ."

Witch-hunting, while always an interesting pastime,, is exhausting for any
people, especially when many of them secretly agree with the witches. The
color of Federalist success soon began to fade. Republican editors found
subtle ways to avoid prosecution without ceasing to criticize, and the
offensive laws rapidly became objects of popular detestation and ridicule.
The main sites of opposition were the South and West. One day the
Hamiltonians op'ened their newspapers to discover that the legislature of
Kentucky had openly defied federal authority to enforce the Alien and
Sedition Acts, Guided by Jefferson, it had adopted resolutions assorting the
rights* of the individual states to determine for themselves whether the
federal government, in any law which it passed, had exceeded the powers
which the states had granted to it The wording of the resolutions had a

[l66] SHADOW OF THE FtmjBE 1793-1802

challenging bluntness. "Where powers are assumed which have not been
delegated, every state has a natural right to nullify . . ." Northern con-
servatives stood shocked. If the doctrine of nullification should prevail, how
could secession be prevented in some future crisis?

Protests against Kentucky's action were sounded in many states and in
the Congress, but almost at once another state emphasized the threat. The
language of the Virginia Resolutions, written by Madison, was somewhat
more temperate than that which Jefferson had given Kentucky, but it too
described the Constitution as "the compact to which the states are parties,"
denied the right of the federal government to go beyond that compact,
and insisted on their right "to interpose." Years later, when John Calhoun
said that the principles of nullification were first taught in the Virginia and
Kentucky resolutions, Madison issued a denial. Virginia's intention, he
averred, had been to grant individual states the right not to resist federal
laws by force, but only to test their constitutionality. The fact remained
that the doctrine of nullification, which was to become a weapon of southern
reaction, was brought into American history as a defense against northern
reaction.

Although in their own time censure of the Kentucky and Virginia resolu-
tions was widespread, they had the effect which Jefferson had intended: they
made people think again. Was the country to risk disintegration for the sake
of two laws which even many Federalists blushed to defend? More and
more it was evident that the Alien and Sedition Acts were heavy liabilities
to the Adams administration.

The President, however, with the dogged irritability that marked all of
his works, stuck to the positions he had taken, antagonizing everyone, on
the left, on the right. Whether the Jeffersonians liked it or not, the un-
pleasant laws would stand as threats to the opposition, but were to be
enforced as little as possible. Whether the Hamiltonians liked it or not,
negotiations for peace with France would continue. Whether anyone liked
it or not, John Adams was John Adams,

CHAPTER SDC

The Pendulum Swings

i. Prometheus Bound

As the century came to its end, the President found himself Increasingly
lonely and estranged. His own party was crying out against him for refusing
to go to war with France. The ground swell of popular resentment against
the controversial laws was turning into a wave of indignation against him
personally. Everything was awry. His only chance of vindication was to be
re-elected. And that chance inevitably depended on the one man whom he
had come to hate more than any other, Hamilton.

In the critical phase of Hamilton's life which opened with the presidential
campaign of 1800,, there was to be seen an almost perfect working out of
Promethean doom. His last frantic clutch at power was like the climax of a
play by Aeschylus, revealing the terrible beauty, the sad radiation, the final
glowing of somber colors produced by the disintegration of greatness.

As the autumn of 1800 approached, the mastermind of the Federalists
was appalled by the speed with which the country was forgetting GenSt,
forgetting XYZ, sinking back into neutrality and Anglophobia, The blame
he assigned largely to Adams. If the President had not balked him, the
country would have been at war with France, allied to England^ safe for
Federalism. The painful fact remained that Adams, still popular in New
England, was certain to be the major Federalist candidate in the election.
The American people did not love him, but they gave him a kind of grudging
respect; and he was, after all, the President

For Hamilton, there was bitter irony in the fact that if he succeeded in
bringing a Federalist majority to the electoral college, it would re-elect a
man for whom he felt profound contempt. As for the second personality
on the slate, C. C. Pinckney of the XYZ affair, he represented for
Hamilton merely the usual Federalist sop to the South. As a practical poli-
tician, however, he was accustomed to working with such instruments as
were at hand. His first task was to hold back the Jeffersonian onslaught in
the popular voting for the state legislatures. New England was still safe for
the Federalists, but the states between the Potomac and the Hudson showed
signs of wavering. If the South's Republican phalanx was to be teite%
Federalism needed a majority of the electors from New York, New Josey,
and Pennsylvania.

Hamilton's first shock came when the early Pteiwylvairiai dbctioa pro-

[l68] SHADOW OF THE FUTURE 1793-1802

duced a Republican majority in the state legislature. To offset this disaster,
he regarded an impressive victory in New York as absolutely essential With
enormous energy he sought to awaken the conservatives of the state to the
peril in which he believed they stood. From questions of principle the level
of the campaign soon descended to crude libels. The Republicans were still
somewhat inhibited by the Sedition Act, but the Federalists felt no re-
straint. Wild rumors about Jefferson began to circulate, and if Hamilton did
not himself spread them, he did nothing to check them. Jefferson, it was
said, had embezzled from estates entrusted to his care, had robbed a widow,
defrauded children. Thousands came to believe these falsehoods which
Jefferson, except in letters to personal friends,, chose proudly to ignore. In
time, they burned themselves out, acridly, like rotten wood.

2. Devices of Despair

Hamilton could count on the votes of many upstate farmers, but New
York City, with its already large immigrant population, would be decisive.
There he was tip against Aaron Burr, whose exceptional political talents
Hamilton respected, and whose lack of scruple he feared. Burr's power was
so great that in return for his support, the Jefferaamans had been compelled
to back him for the Vice-Presidency. Througjb the Tammany Society of
New York he had succeeded in organizing the city's Democrats with a
thoroughness never before seen. In ward after ward, they could be counted
on to turn out the vote, shouting "Burr and Tammany! 7 ' Burr's hold on the
people was especially strong in the poorest and roughest sections of the city
so strong that Hamilton regarded him as the American Catiline, fully cap-
able of inflaming the rabble and encouraging mob violence against the
affluent citizenry, if it served his purpose. But Burf s power went beyond
the riffraff. He was a gentleman, sought after in society, on pleasant terms
with Hamilton himself; he was handsome, personable, witty; his oppor-
tunities to involve persons of influence in his fortunes were unlimited; and
he could offer favors to many a local officeholder in return for aid in the
elections. Dark and mysterious intrigues were rumored between him and
officials of the city. He was the Captain MacHeath of American politics.
Respectable newspapers were surprisingly gentile with him. His following
was not like Jefferson's,, not moved by instinctive feeling for greatness and
good will, but it was formidable in its belief that Burr, given power, would
deal generously with his supporters.

At the ward level of electioneering, Burr had no equal in his time*
Hamilton's aristocratic outlook, intellectual mode of expression, and gen-
eralized view of politics would have unfitted him for the contest even if
he had a popular political program, and he did not. He made speeches in
the city, but to educated audiences; he wrote articles,, but for thoughtful

THE PENDULUM SWINGS [ 169 ]

readers. What he said was eloquent and often compelling, but it left the
mass of voters unmoved.

On Election Day, Tammany did all that Burr expected of it and piled
up a huge majority in the city. Statewide returns showed that the new
legislature would be controlled by the Democrats. Its delegation to the
electoral college would be overwhelmingly for Burr and Jefferson. For
Hamilton to lose his own state was bad enough; to lose it to a Burr sickened
him. Desperation made him leap at an idea against which calm judgment
would have warned him. Several die-hard Federalist congressmen called on
him to insist that all was not lost, after all. John Jay was still governor of
New York. If Hamilton were able to obtain the co-operation of his old
friend, Burr might yet be undone.

The plan was based on the article in the federal Constitution dealing with
the procedure for the election of the President, and which read, "Each
State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct,
a Number of Electors . . ." The article did not specify, however, that
this power adhered only to the legislature as constituted in the most recent
state election. What if the new legislature had not yet been convened?
Could it not be assumed that the power to dictate the manner of appoint-
ment of electors would still rest in the old legislature? And the old New
York legislature, technically still in existence, had a Federalist majority. If
Jay were to call a special session, its members could drive through, and
Jay as Governor could sign, a law removing the power to choose the electors
from the legislature. This power could be assigned instead to state voting
districts,, with each district to choose one elector. If these districts were
shrewdly mapped out, the Democratic vote, concentrated in the city, would
control comparatively few electors. The Federalists, on the other hand,
would have the numerous, if sparsely populated upstate districts. Thus re-
gardless of the statewide popular vote, a heavy majority of Federalists would
represent New York State in the electoral college; and the national election
could still be won.

3. "Swift and Easy h the Descent to HdF

Genuine distrust of popular government, and fear that tibe Jeffmoniaiis
would lead the country into war with England were working in Hamilton;
but so was the power-urge of a man unaccustomed to defeat. He knew that
in taking up this proposal he was suggesting a bald-faced featid open the
people of New York, and tjie circumvention of the Coastitaftioa oi the
United State under the cloak of a technicality. But it wa$ mo time to be
overscrupulous, as he saw it.

To refuse a request from Hamilton was not easy* Off Jay, tat be del not
haye 'tq ueiect voy fcRpcjbu Unlikf Hamiltop^ te Isvas a jp0tice ol ; t

I 170 ] SHABOW OF THE FUTURE 1793-1802

accustomed to try to rid his mind of bias, and he was also a deeply religious
man, for whom moral values were paramount. A fraud was not less a fraud in
his eyes for being convenient, and he had no intention of jeopardizing his
historical position by lending himself to chicane. Courteously but firmly
he rebuffed the anxious party leader. It was an improper scheme, he could
not consider it. With that word, the Federalist party which Hamilton had
done so much to create beg^n to crumble.

Hamilton was bitterly disappointed, but he was always resilient. A ray of
hope had come suddenly from another direction. In South Carolina the
people had shown their loyalty to the Pinckneys, and the state had remained
Federalist. Hamilton, counting heads carefully, decided that if all the
Carolina electors, as well as those elsewhere, would hew closely to the line
of his instructions, his party might yet beat Jefferson and Burr either by a
vote or two in the electoral college, or in the House of Representatives. He
was gambling now with his last stake, and he put it on his ability to control
his party. Even southerners, he calculated, would recognize that at such a
crisis, sectional prejudice had to give way to the greater necessities of class
security.

At that moment, chance dealt him a backhanded blew. Secretary of State
Pickering's persistent attempts to prevent ratification of the treaty with
Fiance had just driven Adams to demand his resignation, together with
that of McHenry, the Secretary of War. In a querulous outburst of indigna-
tion^ the President made a provocative reference to "a British faction" led
by Hamilton. These were inflammatory words to put before the American
voter at such a time, and especially about his own party's leader. Instantly
Hamilton wrote to the President to deny the charge; received no reply;
wrote again; was still unanswered.

"Fac&fa descensus Avemi"; Hamilton as a student had known his Virgil,
but he could not resist the next temptation. Recalling his unsuccessful
attempt of four years earlier, when he had tried to displace Adams with
Thomas Pinckney, he wondered whether it was possible that the same
strategy might now turn up the Presidency for C. C. Pinckney, and push
Adams into the discard. From the begkniag he had urged that every Fed-
eralist elector vote for both men, and only for both mm, on the logical
ground that a party victory against such odds as faced the Federalists could
be achieved only by total unity. It was easy to translate this position into a
new version of his former plot. Pinckney was to be given as many northern
electoral votes as Adams, and far more southern votes.

But even so Hamilton was not content. The written word was his natural
outlet, and the bubbling rancor in him spilled onto paper. He was capti-
vated by the notion of revealing Adams as the petty, inconsistent, and fool-
ish man that he believed him to be. Always a conscientious craftsman, he

THE PENDULUM SWINCS | iji ]

sought out the latest information derogatory to the President for the writing
that was in his mind. The vindictive Pickering and McHenry gladly pro-
vided him with the facts at their disposal but Hamilton was not satisfied.
He wrote to Wokott, who was still Secretary of the Treasury, for his con-
tribution; and had it. Loyalty to the President was felt by few of the men
around him.

A long letter, intended for publication, toot shape under Hamilton's
vitriolic pen. In it Adams stood exposed as a man so vain, pompous, unin-
formed, unreasonable, and incompetent as to be totally unfitted for the
office which he held. Perhaps the clearest indication of what was happening
to Hamilton was his refusal to put this inescapable conclusion into words.
At the end of his philippic, he allowed it to disintegrate into an unblushing
non sequitur, almost unbelievable in a writer of his talent. In spite of every-
thing, he said* the public ought to re-elect Adams, rather than permit Jeffer-
son to become President. Personal hatred on the one hand, and his sense of
responsibility to his party on the other, had trapped him in a timid ambiva-
lence which he had never revealed before.

Close friends of Hamilton, who knew that he was at work on this extraor-
dinary diatribe, begged him to put it aside. He would not. In his own
words, he was "in a very belligerent humor/' However, to placate them, he
agreed to confine distribution of the letter to his confidential circle. The
electoral vote, he maintained, would not be affected.

The letter was given to a printer, on whose discretion he counted; but a
whisper went abroad that it existed, and came to the ears of Aaron Burr,
who heard everything in New York. Before a single copy of the little pam-
phlet had been sent out by Hamilton, Burr had obtained one, by means
which only he knew. The next day the Democratic press had it. The public
could hardly believe its eyes. Hamiltonians throughout the country froze
into voiceless astonishment They saw their leader as the part/s Samson,
blind, enchained, frenzied, pulling down the columns of Federalism in his
last agony. Whatever hope of victory there had been for Adams, whatever
chance that Hamilton might hold his party's electors in line, was now gone.

And that there had been a chance was suggested by the electoral vote,
Although some northern Federalists refused to vote for Pinckaey, and seme
southerners for Adams, the two Federalist candidates came very dose to
Jefferson and Burr, who tied with seventy-three votes each. Adams had sixty-
five, Pinckney sixty-four. It was Adams's conviction to the end of his life
that he would have been re-elected if Hamilton had not betayexi ikon.

4

Burfs success startled the coeuby, stocked
himself. Ca^pomding Tanwpgy .societies which .{heir $s$to4; pt

[ 172] SHADOW OF THE FUTURE 1793-1802

cities besides New York had worked hard for him, but aiming always at the
Vice-Presidency. Suddenly he found himself close to the fulfillment of his
ambitions. The choice between him and Jefferson would now be thrown
into the House of Representatives, with each state having a single vote.
Jefferson could count with certainty only on a few states in the South.
Burr could depend on almost as many in the North. Neither could win a
majority without the support of states controlled by the Federalists.
Here was a situation to Burr's liking. Jefferson could never bring himself
to trade for election with the opposition party, but Burr could. The
convictions and policies of his party meant nothing to him. He wanted
to win, and the bulk of his supporters were as opportunistic as himself.

Jefferson, alarmed not only for his own hopes but for the future of Ameri-
can democracy,, sought to appeal to an ethical sense which Burr did not have.
In an urgent letter, he wrote to Burr that "the enemy would endeavor to
. . . divide us and our friends. Every consideration satisfies me that you will
be on guard against this, as I assure you I am strongly." By that time>
Burr was already negotiating with the more venal elements among the
Federalists in Congress. A promise here, a promise there, began to bring
him the advantage he sought

But to the Federalist right wing, which included the most influential
Federalist senators and congressmen, one Republican was almost as bad as
another. There was not enough to be had from Burr to justify the risks of
a Republican administration, if it could be avoided. And now, to their
delight, they saw that it might be avoided. All that the Federalists in the
House had to do was withhold their votes. This would deprive the states
which they controlled of a voice in the election. Neither candidate could
then obtain a majority of the states.

The Constitution did not dearly provide for the contingency which they
foresaw, and in which tie country would be without a Chief Executive.
However, it did say that in case of the death or resignation of both the
President and the Vice-President, Congress could by law declare "what
Officer shall then act as President" It wast the belief of the Federalists that,
under this clause, they could compel the Congress to name at their choos-
ing the official who would become acting President, if the election proved
fruitless. Jefferson understood this: he exposed their game in a letter writ-
ten on December 15,, 1800. "Several of the high-flying Federalists have ex-
pressed their determination ... to prevent a choice by the House . . . and
let the government devolve on ... a President of the Senate pro tern, by
what they say would be only a stretch of the Constitution/' Another sug-
gestion mooted among the Federalists was that the executive authority be
given to the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. This, they thought, would

THE PENDULUM SWINGS [ 173 ]

be John Jay, for he had just been renominated by Adams to this post, and
had not yet declined.

For Jefferson, it was a time of almost intolerable anxiety. He made a
last effort to appeal to morality and reason. Let a convention, he proposed,
be called to amend the Constitution, and find a proper solution to the
problem. He could hardly have been surprised when the Federalists shrugjed
away this suggestion, but he was angry. He had always believed that when,
in the course of human events, it becomes necessary to oppose injustice, a
decent respect for the opinions of mankind may require the use of force
as a last resort. What his emissaries said to the Federalist leaders may be
surmised from a letter in which at a later time he recounted the history of
the crisis. "If they [the Federalists] could have been permitted . . . they
would certainly have prevented an election. But we thought it best to declare
openly and firmly, once for all, that the day such an act passed [giving ex-
ecutive power to the President pro tern of the Senate] the Middle States
would arm, and that no such usurpation, even for a single day,, would be
submitted to. This . . . shook them/*

The Federalists were shaken, in fact, to the point of permitting the elec-
tion by the House to proceed. They knew that they lacked popular support,
and violence was in the air. Republican extremists were rumored to have
decided that any public officer who unconstitutionally accepted the executive
power would be put to death. In a letter written long afterward, Albert
Gallatin, who was Jefferson's chief agent in the House, said that bodies of
armed men had been organized in Maryland and Virginia and stood ready
to march on Washington. When alarmed Federalist congressmen appealed
to the Governor of Pennsylvania for a militia force to protect the capital in
the event of civil war,, they found him understandably reluctant

Gallatin's private talks with Federalist leaders made their position pain-
fully clear to them. Under this threat of force, and knowing their unpopu-
larity, they had to permit the election; and their hatred of Jefferson in con-
sequence became hysterical. They felt that if they could keep him out of
the Presidency, that in itself would be almost enough of a victory. Burf s
advances had been well received by some of them; and meeting in con-
spiratorial groups, Federalist leaders laid plans to throw the election to him.
Against such a development, the Jeffersonians had no recourse. They had
demanded the election; they were about to get it

5. The Find Incandescence

It was at this moment that Hamilton rediscovered in himself the inte-
grated strength of mind that had given so mwfe ^id to W&tfragjtop #ad
that had worn the admiration, and tespept evep of lm oppoaeafau 'Tfee

"Very bel%eimt mood" tf*at had le^Wm iai ftie wiW afjtoqfc apu

SHADOW OF THE FUT0BE 1793-1802

had passed. He ceased all at once to be the rabid partisan and the angry
egotist He was illuminated by the white-hot knowledge that he, and only
he, could hold the country together. In the final test, he stood with the few
great leaders against the many little connivers, regardless of party. He hated
Jefferson, the arch-Republican and the friend of France, but it was a hatred
IB which there was no contempt It was altogether different from his scorn
of the cunning intriguers who wanted to steal the Presidency from Jefferson,
or from his fear of the infinitely dangerous Burr. He knew in his heart that
Jefferson, for all his talk of arms, was a respecter of law, a believer in fair
play, who disliked violence, and was in most matters far more cautious than
Hamilton himself.

He flung himself into the Congressional turmoil, the old irresistible Ham-
ilton, moving his friends with entreaty, coercing them with logic, snaring
them with hints of favor. A number of Federalists were turned away from
Burr by the unmistakable sincerity that glowed through Hamilton's letters.
"I beg of you, as you love your country, your friends and yourself, to recon-
sider dispassionately the opinion you have expressed in favor of Burr." "For
Heaven's sake, my dear sir, exert yourself to the utmost to save our country
from so great a calamity" [as the election of Burr]. If the Federalists sup-
ported Burr, he, Hamilton, could no longer "be of a party which will have
disgraced itself and the country."

At the end, he concentrated his fire on four men, all of whom still
favored Burr, and who happened to hold decisive votes Delaware's only
congressman, the influential James Bayard, one representative from Ver-
mont, and two from Maryland. At first, he seemed to have failed. All of these
men considered themselves pledged to Burr, and voted for him on the first
ballot, when neither candidate won the necessary majority. Jefferson had
eight states; Burr six; in two they were tied. In the long sessions which
followed^ thirty-four more ballots were taken, with the same result. There
were rumors that several states were about to switch to Burr, seduced by
his promises; but Hamilton's efforts did not cease. Bayard was persuaded
to enter into secret conversations with Gallatin, and was given reassurance
that he "might confide in the result," if Jefferson won. Hamilton wrote to
Bayard in the same vein, saying that Jefferson was not "zealot enough to
do anything . . . which will contravene his interest or his popularity. He is
as likely as any man I know to temporize and calculate . " The estab-
lished system, Hamilton assured Bayard, would be preserved undo: Jeffer-
son because it "could not be overturned without danger to the man who
did it"

This was enough for Bayard, who shared his thoughts with the Federalist
representatives from Vermont and Maryland. A plan was conceived by
which they could elect Jefferson without openly violating their commit-

THE PENDULUM: SWINGS [ 175 ]

ments to Burr merely by withholding their votes. On the next ballot, the
thirty-sixth, their abstentions tipped the balance, and ten states went for
Jefferson.

In this way, the Constitution of the United States was kept intact. Ham-
ilton, who had inadvertently made Jefferson Vice-President, now consciously
and deliberately had made him President. The election of 1800 was perhaps
the world's first example of a peaceful revolution, of a fundamental reversal
of national policy achieved by legal means, and without bloodshed. Its
leading participants recognized the enormous social significance of Jeffer-
son's victory. In the last minutes of Adams's presidency, the Federalists
made a unique effort to leave their mark on the government by appointing
their own people to every vacant post in the government and to some
created for the occasion. On March 3, the Senate stayed in session until
midnight to confirm the President's nominations. At dawn the next day,
having done all he could to hang Federalist millstones around Jefferson's
neck, Adams drove moodily out of Washington on the road to
Massachusetts, in order not to be present at the inauguration of his
successor. His last constructive act as President had been the apppointment
of John Marshall as Chief Justice of the United States.

CHAPTER SEVEN

A Time for Hope

i. Deep Fog in London

News of Jefferson's election came to William Pitt as one more increment
of darkness in the deep gloom that enveloped England. The war on the
Continent was lost The Second Coalition which Grenville had created
around Russia, and which had seemed to offer such promise, had dissolved
after Marengo, At LunevilH Austria had signed a treaty of peace which
was an abysmal capitulation. Spain* Portugal, Naples, the German states
were all in a panic to make terms with the conqueror. Aside from England,
the only countries still in the lists against France were Turkey, Naples, and
Portugal. Austria, among other nations, had supinely pledged herself not
to import merchandise from England. Victories of the Navy in the Med-
iterranean and the Atlantic, whfle impressive enough, were hardly adequate
compensation for the vanished profits of business, and British merchants
were loud and ever louder in protest.

France knew England's sensitive spots, and how to reach them. In India,
her aid had encouraged Tipu Sahib's fierce rebellion, which, even though
finally suppressed, had left the country in a state of extreme unrest, and
had compelled the sending of reinforcements from England. French forces
had backed tie spectacular Wolfe Tone and other leaders of the Irish re-
bellion which still smoldered ominously, using up British tax money and
military forces needed elsewhere. French influence had persuaded Czar
Paul of Russia to join with the Kings of Prussia, Denmark, and Sweden
in reviving Armed Neutrality to resist England's naval rules limiting their
trade with France.

Nature was compounding England's man-made troubles. The harvest
had failed. Riots in the West Country to protest food shortages and high
prices had compelled the use of soldiery to suppress them. Business had
slumped, Consols were down, so were stock company shares on the Royal
Exchange. It was becoming harder and harder for Pitt to find money to
prosecute the war. What, Englishmen were demanding, had they got in
return for the millions of pounds which had been sent to Austria and Prussia
and Russia to pay for the coalition armies? How long were they to continue
to pour their gold into Europe's bottomless weH? In the past ten years, the
national debt had doubled, reaching the appalling figure of 227,000,000.
The government's annual expenditures for the armed services wore double

A TIME FOR HOPE [ 177 ]

the taxes which It was able to collect The ingenious graduated income tax,
the first of its kind in Anglo-Saxon history, had brought in new revenues,
but at a heavy price in popularity. Parliament still stood with Pitt, it was
true; but the irrepressible Charles James Fox never ceased to remind Eng-
land of the amputation of her civil liberties, and a ground swell of Whiggism
was rising again.

Even the King had no smiles for Pitt now. Aging and mentally unstable,
George nevertheless had some fight left in him. It was Pitt's view that the
time had come to settle the Irish troubles, and ease the wartime strain, by
granting Ireland Parliamentary union with England and allowing Catho-
lics full citizenship. To the Act of Union, passed by Parliament, the King
at last discontentedly agreed, but at the thought that Catholics might be
permitted to hold public office in England, the stubborn old man balked
with all his Hanoverian doggedness. He could not or would not grasp Pitt's
point that in a war with "Jacobin and atheistic France," Roman Catholics
were bound to be England's staunchest allies. Since his signature was neces-
sary before the Emancipation Act, as it was called, could become effective,
they had swiftly reached a deadlock. The whole nation knew of the struggle
between them, and divided on the issue*

2. Exit Pitt, Quietly

Even Grenville, on whom Pitt so greatly relied,, now treated him with a
certain reserve. The cloud between them had risen a few years earlier, in
1797, when word came from an agent in Paris that the Director Barras
could be bribed to make peace with England, if enough money were offered.
After careful investigation, Pitt became fully convinced that the bid was
genuine, and wrote of it to King George, saying^ "The sum he [Barras]
names is a very large one, amouting to 450,000; but it seems not to be
more than would be wisely employed if he can make good . . * Sub-
sequently, working through Boyd, a prominent British banker, Barras raised
his price: Bonaparte's early victories encouraged him to demand 1,200,000
for a peace in which Engknd would have Ceylon returned to her. There-
after, Pitt on his own initiative sent off a messenger to Barras with a virtual
acceptance of the offer. But not having consulted Grenville, he found it
necessary to send him an apology: a the offer seemed ... so tempting, and
the time pressed so much to an hour . . ." Grenvflle answered in the style
of glacial scoro which was natural to him, "I cannot deny to you that tibe
whole of that tensaiciioa is so disagreeable to my mind tihaC I aib veiy glad
to have been saved the necessity of deciding upon it . . , I sbuddlet at what
we are dbing . ; , It would fee tea Aorasand fees safer to fade tibe stem
. . ."Hectt^a^Ire&I^^
Ms kgftmabfs; $&i: the' difficulties 1 'itfjicfa was tihea ;

SHADOW OF THE FUTURE 1793-1802

Paris* made Pitt lose confidence in the negotiation, and it was dropped;
but the relations between Pitt and Grenville, while always courteous, never
had quite the same quality of mutual confidence as before.

To make matters worse for Pitt, after the expulsion of Barras from France
her new master, Bonaparte, swiftly proved himself more than an original
military strategist. His supervision of foreign policy, with the serpentine
Talleyrand as his agent, showed distinct flair. An open letter dated Christ-
mas Day 1799, to King George III, and pleading for peace, had moved
Europe's unsophisticated masses: "Is there no means by which we can
come to an understanding? ... I beg your Majesty to believe that ... it
is my sincere desire to make a practical contribution . . . towards a general
peace." Grenville's reply had of course been lordly and arrogant, and Bona-
parte had known precisely how to use it to rekindle France's fighting spirit.
"The First Consul has promised you peace," he immediately told the French
people. "Should some misguided power still wish to tempt destiny ... the
First Consul himself will march forth to conquer it at the head of the
warriors he has more than once led to victory." Having made good his
words at Marengo, he had proceeded to reveal yet another facet of his per-
sonality, tricking the Americans into a treaty, the Paris Convention of 1800,
by which they gave up a valid claim to millions, and received nothing in
return.

The Americans! As if anything more had been needed to add to Pitt's
worries, his reports from the new capital, Washington, told of democracy
rampant, Jefferson triumphant, Hamilton retired to private life. America's
mood was dangerously confident. It affected even Englishmen, such as
Robert Liston, who represented England in Washington for a time after
Hammond's departure and who warned that war with the United States
"must bring with it extensive damage to our navigation, loss of Canada,
and the -world behind it."

It made Pitt uneasy to see British industry increasingly dependent on
the American market and American raw materials. Nearly one fifth of
British manufactured exports had been absorbed in the United States
during 1800. Between 1794 and 1801, thanks to Whitney's cotton gin
and Jay's treaty, British imports of American raw cotton had risen from
almost nothing to over 20 million pounds annually. America's total export
trade with the British empire had tripled in the same period. Should
America become aggressive, the British economy would be vulnerable.
The new President, it was true, seemed to have learned caution since the
days of the Declaration of Independence. For a man who had indulged in
so much violent denunciation of England, his first statements in office were
unexpectedly mild. But Pitt never trusted any statesman's peaceful prot-
estations. He knew from his own experience that national policy is not a

A TIME FOR HOPE

thing fixed and definite but an ever changing expression of the world com-
plex; that time plays tricks with men's purposes, and that a pledge of peace,
even when sincere, is worth no more than a hope that all will go well.

But the British people were war-sick, they wanted peace, with America,
with France, with the world. Pitt did not believe that any treaty with vic-
torious France could endure, but a truce, a breathing spell there might be
justification for that. Unfortunately, neither he nor Grenville was the man
to negotiate with the enemy. The inference was inescapable: they had to
go. He was in any event weary to the bone from the long and desperate
struggle to win a war without employing a British army; and like Hamilton
in America, with whom he had much in common, he was painfully insol-
vent.

The immediate problem was to select the right issue on which to resign,
one which was weighty enough to justify his decision, yet would not impair
the nation's morale, or his own reputation. He chose the issue of Catholic
Emancipation; most Englishmen would approve his desire for a settlement
of the Irish troubles; in the public mind, the responsibility for his going
would thus rest on the unpopular King. Nor would it be as if, in resigning,
he was really giving up power. With a shrewdly chosen successor, someone
agreeably disposed to accept guidance, he could still provide the spirit,
if not the voice of the new government, until he was ready to resume office.
He thought he knew the right man for the interim Henry Addington, who
for years had Served him as Chancellor of the Exchequer a well-meaning
mediocrity, a natural-born compromiser, with a sanguine disposition and
a good flow of pompous words. He had the additional qualifications of
being well-liked in Parliament, where he had been Speaker of the House;
he was versed in finance, and popular with the middle class from which
he came. Addington's father had been a doctor, and the son longed for a
peerage and the fellowship of the Lords a characteristic which amused Pitt,
to whom titles were toys for other men.

In his own state of uncertainty, he could offer Addington only very gen-
eral counsel on how to deal with France: "If we are firm, and our domestic
difficulties do not increase, we may secure creditable and adequate tarns/*
"The question of war or peace is not in itself so formidable as that of the
scarcity [of food] , . . for the evils and growing dangers of which I confess
I see np adequate remedy/' Addington was unperturbed by such anxieties,
all eagerness to bring peace to England.

Witji tragpdy m his heart, but calm exterior, Pitt made a suitable speech
in the House on the Catholic question and offered his resipiatitoii fcO &e
King. At tjhe last nw&ute^ tlje thought of what lie was giving up was too
ipudh for bip% aijd hp cpuldi not refrain from a suggestion that be mighfy
qfyer al} continue in office if His lyfejesty Jbsisted, But His Majesty {did pot

[ 180] SHADOW OF THE FUTURE 1793-1802

insist; on the contrary, he accepted a little too readily Pitf s nomination of
Addington to take his place. He was tired of brilliant, contentious ministers.
In the audience which he then gave to the fluttered Addington, he said
querulously: "My nerves are weak . . . Your father, Dr. Addington, said
twelve years ago that quiet was what I wanted, and that I must have."

3. A Passion for Peace

Hamilton had gone, Pitt had gone, Bonaparte had come. Years later,
Dostoyevski would say of this moment in history, "The former face of the
world was destined, at the end of the past century, to assume a new guise."
The main voice of destiny in Europe was that of Napoleon the "arch-
accident" while in America, Thomas Jefferson spoke for the new era. Both
appeared to represent the democratic impulse which was throbbing on either
side of the Atlantic, and one of them did.

In a spirit of grateful relief after all the stress of the election, Jefferson
moved into the stone "Palace" near the depressing mud flats of the Poto-
mac (it would be restored and painted white after being burned by the
British in 1814). Much of his time had to be spent in receiving congratu-
lationscoupled often with requests for political jobs from old-time
Republican zealots, many of them from the West. It was primarily to put
them at their ease that he beg^n to affect the shabby and untidy clothes
which at Erst sight made foreign diplomats wrinkle their noses. He did not
mind appearing a little ridiculous to aristocrats if he could make the ordinary
American, the shy townsman, the inarticulate backwoodsman, feel under-
stood and welcome. In addition, of course, the contrast of his informal
manner and dress with the dignified style of his Federalist predecessors
would not be lost on the country. Jefferson was the Erst President to recog-
nize the political disadvantages of conspicuous <Mgpity in America. He knew
that the American man in the street would forgive him, and even admire
him for knowing Greek, playing the violin, and designing buildings, but
would resent any pretension to fashion or grandeur in his personal life. He
was expected to be a democrat, and he was; his hospitality to all visitors,
regardless of status, was to help drain his fortune during the eight years
of his Presidency.

The reports from abroad, and especially Pitt s resignation, he found alto-
gether eocouiaging. The end of the war was in sight. Yet he could see clearly
enougji that the continuance of peace for America, over the past twenty
yeats* had beea largely accidental. The country, living under the shadow of
swoirds, had beea more fortunate than it realized. As he wrote to John
A$aim long afterward, "we knew not how we rode through the storm with
heart and hand, and made a happ y port." From the moment that the first
taneaty with England had been sigaed in 1783, the new institution of

A TIME FOR HOPE [ l8l ]

American sovereignty had pressed strongly against the confining walls of the
British Empire. Again and again America's steely purpose had rasped on
England's flinty sense of power, and each time it was events outside the
control of the two governments which had extinguished the sparks of war
before they kindled.

Now Bonaparte's shattering victories and peaceful gestures were having
their effect Britain's war spirit was ebbing fast. Its last flaring was em-
bodied in excited reports which came to Jefferson from London and Copen-
hagen. Swedish and Danish participation with Russia in Armed Neutrality
had been regarded in England as gravely menacing the British economy.
With the submission of Holland and Hamburg to French domination, the
Baltic nations had become a leading source of essential food imports for
England, and her main channels of entry for trade with the continent. She
could not afford to stand by while they linked themselves to Bonaparte.
When warnings to Denmark proved futile, Grenville had insisted that a
fleet be sent to intimidate the Danes, and Pitt, in the last days of his ministry,
had perforce agreed. A declaration of war would have forced Russia and
Prussia to take up arms against England, so there was none. Instead fifty
warships sailed for Danish waters, with Horatio Nelson as second in com-
mand.

When the Danes proudly and emphatically rejected a British ultima-
tum, Nelson's squadrons entered the harbor of Copenhagen, and engaged
its strong coastal batteries and defensive fleet. For a time, the battle seemed
to go against him. His commander, Admiral Parker, at one point signaled
him to withdraw, but Nelson, placing his telescope to his blind eye, declared
that he could not see the signal, and persisted, until the Danes ceased fire
and agreed to negotiate. As matters turned out, however, the entire action
had been unnecessary. A few days before the battle, Czar Paul of Russia
had been murdered, and his successor, Alexander I, had brushed off French
advice, and agreed to compromise with England on the subject of maritime
rights. Thereafter Armed Neutrality had once more dissolved.

As a demonstration of ruthless naval power, the Copenhagen enterprise
was an unqualified success; but Jefferson felt with indignation that England's
last pretense of a moral position had crumbled. How could she now claim
to be leading the forces of righteousness against the terroristic French? In
cannonading the ships of a neutral nation without a declaration of war,
she had, as he saw it, testified to her own desperation and brutality.

Copenhagen aside, and with Pitt and Grenville out of the Cabinet, the
chances of sustained peace seemed promising. The new man, Addmgtoti,
was evidently earnest in seeking a treaty with France; and he also showsed
a comparatively friendly disposition toward the United States. Offenses of
the British Navy against America wore already becoming less frequent If

[ 182 ] SHADOW OF THE FUTURE 1793-1802

he would put an aid to impressment, all might yet be well between the two
nations. Rufus King in London had been instructed to deliver a message
to the British Government: "The United States . . . requires positively that
their seamen who are not British subjects, whether born in America or else-
where, shall be exempt from impressment." A favorable response from Ad-
dington could go far to heal one of the worst of the festering sores in trans-
atlantic diplomacy,

4. Peace, If ...

The President felt able to write to his militant old friend, Thomas Paine,
in the spring of 1801, "Determined as we are to avoid, if possible, wasting
the energies of our people in war and destruction, we shall avoid implicating
ourselves with the powers of Europe even in support of the principles which
we mean to pursue. We believe we can enforce these principles ... by
peaceable means." What were these peaceable means? For another corres-
pondent, at almost the same time, Jefferson developed the point: "Our
commerce is so valuable to them [the European powers] that they will be
glad to purchase it when the only price we ask is to do us justice. I believe
we have in our hands the means of peaceable coercion . . ." This concep-
tion had for many years been the mainspring of his foreign policy. He saw
It as possibly opening up to the world a new method of coping with inter-
national disputes. As early as 1794, he said in a letter, "I love peace, and I
am anxious that we should give the world still another useful lesson, by show-
ing to them other modes of punishing injuries than by war ... I love, there-
for ... [the] proposition of cutting off all communications with the nation
[England] which has conducted itself so atrociously. This, you will say,
may bring on war. If it does, we will meet it like men; but it may not bring
on war, and then the experiment will have been a happy one."

Peace, then except perhaps in the Mediterranean, whence humiliating
news had come. The Dey of Algiers had compelled an American man-of-
war the George W<Mngfxm> of all names^-to haul down its flag, fly the
colors of Algiers, and cany an Algerian ambassador to Constantinople. The
words* of the Dey, on tliis occasion^ were:: *Tou pay me tribute, so you are
my slaves." The insult could not "be allowed to pass unchallenged; and now
word had come that the Pasha of Tripoli, in order to express his dissatisfac-
tion with the size of the American tribute, had declared war on the United
States, and had cut down the flag at the house of the American consul
there. Long ago, as minister to France^ Jefferson had urged a concerted
effort by the western powers to stamp out the Barbary pirates, but had been
rebuffed by Vergennes. As President, he saw no choice for America but to
undertake the task by herself. The decision troubled him deeply. It ran
counter to Republican principles, which held a large navy to be politically

A TIME FOR HOPE [ 183 ]

undesirable, a tool of reaction, and economically wasteful, a sinkhole of
public funds. But he knew better than to try to be consistent at the expense
of the nation's self-respect and commerce. Warships would be built and
sent to the North African coast, and American merchantmen would be
given the freedom of the Mediterranean. With this exception, there could
be peace.

No war, no serious war, not with England, not with France, not even
with Spain. Jefferson thought it probable that in time the hard-pressed
Spaniards would consent to sell Louisiana for a price, for their adminis-
trative costs far exceeded revenues from the colony. Looking to the future,
the President had an inspiring vision of the United States in possession of
all the Gulf provinces and the entire Mississippi and Missouri valleys. He
had already discussed plans to explore the Missouri with his private secretary,
Captain Meriwether Lewis, whom he considered fully qualified to head the
expedition, when the time should be ripe.

There was, to be sure, a persistent rumor that Bonaparte had been before-
hand with the Spaniards, that even while he was negotiating with the Mur-
ray mission for peace with America, he had signed a secret treaty with
Charles IV of Spain under which Louisiana would come to France in ex-
change for an Italian province. Jefferson found this hard to credit. That
France and Spain had explored the subject was likely enough, but surely
Bonaparte and Talleyrand knew that America would regard such a trans-
action as an unfriendly act. The United States could not quietly accept a
transfer of her southern border from a weak foreign power to a strong one.
A move in this direction by Bonaparte might be enough to throw the United
States into England's arms. To deter him in case he actually contemplated
so aggressive an actipn, Jefferson turned to an old friend, the noted French
economist, Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours, who was then planning
to return from the United States to his native country. Du Pont had access
to Bonaparte; and he was authorized to speak for the President, and review
all the arguments against French possession of Louisiana.

5. "Let Us Unite . . ."

No war, and equally, no unnecessary partisan quarrels within the nation.
It was to this end that Jefferson declared in his inaugural address: "Let
us unite with one mind . . . We have gained little if we countenance . . .
political intolerance . . . Every difference of opinion is not a diiference of
principle. We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists/' He was a paitisam,
but he was distrustful of partisanship. He knew that wherever the demo*
cratic spirit is uatrammeled, partisanship is likely to be at its paost irra^
tional. It was* his belief tlnat the way to ke$p the Republicans ia power was
to show moderation to pppon^nts: HI this spirit, h^e urg^d

[ 184] SHA1>OW OF THE FUTURE 1793-1802

extremists of his own party not to press too soon for radical legislation
to see the wisdom of Solon's remark that "no more good must be attempted
than the nation can bear." With the help of Albert Gallatin, his gifted
Secretary of the Treasury, he counted on making most of the government's
advances through reduction of costs and taxes. He intended "to reform the
waste of public money, and drive away the vultures who prey upon it."

The Alien Laws were for practical purposes a dead letter, and the Sedi-
tion Act "that libel on legislation" had expired; the excise tax on
whisky, toward which the western farmers felt such hatred, would be re-
pealed; the Constitution would be amended in respect of the procedure
for the election of the President and Vice-President. These things being
done, the federal government could leave the rest to the states. The Amer-
ican people would soon recognize the falsehood of hysterical predictions by
such men as George Cabot and Timothy Pickering that his election meant
social upheaval on the French model. Everyone spoke of "a Republican
revolution," but revolution in the conventional sense was far from his
purpose or disposition. Thorough study of classical history had made him
politically cautious. He knew that no party and no statesman is ever
proved right in the long ran, and that humility is the ultimate wisdom in
a man of government. Change there would have to be in America, but it
would come to meet evolving needs and by the will of the nation.

It took a long time to correct social injustice. Jefferson had a keen sense
of fair play, and all his long life tyranny over the poor by the rich could
fill Mm with a sense of outrage that was youthful in its intensity. But this
did not mean that he would allow hot anger to be translated into national
policy. Innovation, he was aware, is strong political medicine, and a little
of it goes a long way. To many he seemed to be doctrinaire, but he was in
feet an empiricist He would toss out ideas to observe the public's and his
own subsequent judgment of them, and he had no hesitation in changing
fliem. The mood of the American multitude, he sensed, was frequently
mutinous, but it was far from revolutionary. They followed him not for
his theories, but because they trusted him, because they felt instinctively
that he stood with them against the aristocrats and the magnates of business.
The way of life that Hamiltonkn government had given them was much to
their liking; all that they objected to was the HaEniltonians,

Far from being in danger of a revolution, the nation actually faced the
opposite perilthat changes in its laws and institutions Would not be
achieved in time to prevent calamity. Actoms^ m his last frenzy of frustra-
tion and pique, had invaded Jefferson's area erf privilege wlien he appointed
John Marshall to be Chief Justice. In its existing composition, the Supreme
Court was bound to be hostile to almost any reformist legisfetibn. Even
more serious, Adams had created and filled a host of new f edetid ';t

A TIME FOR HOPE [ 185 ]

many of them unjustified by need. "They [the Federalists] have retired
into the judiciary as into a stronghold/' Jefferson wrote privately and with
bitterness. ". . . From that battery, all the works of Republicanism are to
be beaten down . . " For a time, he considered asking his overwhelmingly
Republican Congress to amend the Constitution so as to limit judicial
tenure to a fixed term of years. But mature reflection prevented him from
promoting such an amendment, partly for fear that it might weaken the
authority of the Constitution in other areas of government, but mainly
because it was almost certain to be defeated.

In spite of the packed courts, the President saw little reason for pessimism.
The many evils of democracy excessive partisanship, corruption, demagog-
uery, slowness of decision, frequent mediocrity in high places were more
than compensated, he believed, by the energies which it awakened in the
people. At fifty-eight, he himself was full of vigor. And he had learned to
trust himself. Perhaps the chief difference between him and his predecessors
was that Washington and Adams regarded themselves primarily as rulers,
while Jefferson saw himself as a leader. His administration would help his
countrymen extend their individual liberties and opportunities, and correct
serious inequities in American life: he was sure of it He was sure, too, that
his foreign policy would prove to the people that national self-respect and
peace are compatible.

6. The Guns Are Silent

His confidence in the future was further buoyed, when, not many months
after taking office, news came that preliminary articles of peace had been
agreed upon between France and England. Dispatches from Rufus King
in London and from Robert Livingston in Paris said that Bonaparte had
begun by rebuffing Addington's overtures, but that reverses to French arms
in Egypt and on the seas, and the collapse of Armed Neutrality in the north,
had subsequently softened him. Seeing that it was no longer possible for
France to hold Egypt, hoping to get something for it while there was still
time, he had sent an envoy to London for negotiations.

The definitive treaty was to be drawn later at Amiens, but its main terms
were already known. Their effect was to recognize the hegemony of Bona-
parte over the numerous satellite republics and kingdoms which France
had established around her. But Addington's face, or at least some of his
features were saved. The French were to evacuate not only Egypt, but
Naples and Rome. And there was the usual bandying about of islands all
over the world. England was to retain Ceylon and Trinidad, which she
had occupied during the war, but she had to promise to return strategic
Malta to its former possessors, the Knights of St. John. The French also
prodded Addington into a few other sacrifices: to let the Cape of Good

[ 1&6] SHADOW OF THE FUTURE 1793-1802

Hope become a free port; to modify the boundaries of Guiana in France's
favor.

Livingston mentioned casually that the British had also agreed to inter-
pose no obstacles to the sailing of a French army to Santo Domingo. A
native revolt there^ led by the remarkable negro patriot, Toussaint FOuver-
ture and secretly supported by England and by President Adams, had
wrested the island from the control of France. On the whole, Jefferson was
inclined to see Santo Domingo returned to French rule, in order to weaken
British influence in the West Indies, and to stimulate American trade. The
news that the noted General Leclerc, Napoleon's brother-in-law, was in com-
mand of the French expeditionary force suggested that Bonaparte did not
intend to leave the outcome to chance.

The first response of the English and French peoples to the peace, Jeffer-
son read, was wildly enthusiastic. On that note of cheer, the year 1801 ended,
and an unaccustomed stillness came over the western world. Gunfire might
still be heard as British cruisers chased American smugglers in the Caribbean,
as settlers in the Northwest Territory pushed embittered Indian tribes to-
ward the Mississippi, as American frigates took revenge on Barbary pirates,
but the armies and fleets of the great powers refrained from battle. A man
of peace was President of the United States; a man of peace was Prime
Minister of England; and a man who said that he wanted peace was First
Consul of France. It was a time for hope.

PART FOUR

THE POUNDING SURF OF CRISIS

1802-1812

CHAPTER ONE

The Triggering of "War

i. "I/Ambigu"

As the diplomatic shuttle flew between the capitals of the great powers,
the crimson pattern of the Napoleonic era began to appear on the loom.
One of its main threads was Bonaparte's estimate of England's intentions.
After Pitt's resignation, he seems briefly to have believed in the possibility
of a lasting peace which is to say, he believed that England's will to fight
had withered at least, that she would no longer contest French pre-
eminence on the continent, provided that some considerable part of her
trade there remained to her.

This was for him a moment of high aspiration. He was struck quite seri-
ously by a conception of himself as the giver of peace, prosperity, and
republicanism to Europe, as Bonaparte the Good. And peace in Europe
meant freedom to act elsewhere, to the greater glory of France. Her colonial
empire was to be rebuilt in Louisiana. The revolt of Toussaint in Santo
Domingo was to be put down by a veteran French army which could there-
after be moved on to New Orleans, if it proved necessary to chastise the
Americans. The flabby Spanish monarchy was to be forced to share its
imperial privileges in South America with France. Naval cruisers and mer-
chant vessels would carry the tricolor all over the world, as proudly as the
ships of England, in the century past, had carried the Union Jack.

A fleeting vision, it was nevertheless enough to lead him irretrievably to
disaster. Under its spell he committed France to transatlantic adventures
which he was bitterly to regret. But months before the failure of his west-
ward ambitions became clear, he had already begun to realize that the
premise on which they were founded England's desire for a long peace-
was highly unreliable. He was never a man to ignore evidence, even if it
was unwelcome, and the evidence from London, as it emerged, quickly
disabused him of the notion that Pitt's departure from the government and
the cessation of fighting signaled a fundamental alteration in British policy.

A hint of the future came to Bonaparte soon after Henry Adciington was
made Prime Minister. A little French newspaper called L'Am&tgu was then
being published in London, Its editor was a Frenchman, Jean Peltier; its
readers were &migr6s living in England; its content was largely gossip and,
when gossip failed, outright fabrication. In the early days of 1802, while
the definitive treaty of peace was being negotiated at Amiens^ Peltier com-

[ 1OO ] THE POUNDING SURF OF CRISIS l8o2-l8l2

ceived the idea of filling Ms sheet with something that was sure to be popu-
lar: a compendium of all the scurrilities then being circulated in aristocratic
circles about the lowborn Bonaparte and his Creole wife, Josephine, for-
merly married to the late guillotined Vicomte de Beauharnais. Napoleon
was portrayed as "this little monkey of four feet," "an old Columbine,
refuse of all the Clowns of the Revolution," pirouetting with the castoff
mistress of Barras. Were the gentlemen of England to make terms with the
false-hearted scum of Corsica?

A popular Tory newspaper, The True Briton, promptly followed Peltier's
lead by publishing an English version, even cruder, of the same material.
In due time, copies of these newspapers and others equally vicious found
their way to the Foreign Ministry at Paris. Immediately an urgent message
went by private channels to officials of the Foreign Office in London. The
outrageous attacks had been seen by the First Consul, and had produced
a very bad effect Could not something be done with these irresponsible
editors? 'There needs to be a strong effort to close their mouths/* wrote an
informed Frenchman, Louis-Guillaume Otto, who had negotiated the pre-
liminary treaty for France. Otherwise, the peace was not likely to endure.
French newspapers, closely controlled by the government, had begun to
respond with comparable assaults on the leaders of England.

These warnings reached Addington, as did also a note from one of his
own trusted diplomats, then in Paris, about the "inconceivable damage
done by inflammatory newspapers poisoning the public mind" on both sides
of the Channel. He was somewhat disconcerted. What could he do? To
antagonize the Tory press would be to cut his own political throat; and
Peltier was the protg6 of high French aristocrats who were intimately con-
nected with the greatest lords of England. The Prime Minister put the
matter aside until there came to Whitehall a secret emissary carrying direct
authorization from Bonaparte, one Joseph Fi6v6e > who had been told to
stress the gravity with which the First Consul viewed the British attacks on
his character. Specifically, Fi6v6e urged that L'Ambfgu be suppressed,
Peltier punished, and the London papers generally made to exercise re-
strafot Even then the most that Addington would concede, and that only
reluctantly, was the commencement of an insignificant prosecution of
Peltier in the courts. As for the British press, he agreed only to write cau-
tionary letters to the editor of The True Briton and one or two other
newspapers. These missives tamed out to be feebly reproachful. "I doubt
whether it be possible even foj: you to be aware of tije confluences pro-
$ucqd by opprobrious observations, in papers? of such established reputation
as yours,, on th;e proceedings of foreign governments ^nd those who are at
&ofe bead." k *God forbid I should lay a ii^er on the liberty of the press,
but . ; ." ' , ' ' '' ' ' ' , , ;

THE TRIGGERING OF WAR [ 191 ]

A few personal attempts to influence Tory journalists by bribery and per-
suasion left Fi6vee discouraged, and his report to the First Consul was that
not only the British press but the British Government was still essentially
hostile to France. Addington, however, accustomed as he was to the excesses
of a free press, saw little real importance in the episode. The gibes at himself
in the French newspapers left him untroubled. Entirely lacking Bonaparte's
sensitivity to the currents of propaganda, he could not conceive that for
the Frenchman the only inference to be drawn from the libelous exchanges
was the probability that war would soon be resumed.

The Prime Minister was, in fact, blandly optimistic. The British people
seemed pleased with him. Business was improving. Consols were rising on
the exchange. The country and the Parliament had enthusiastically wel-
comed his assurance that the right of habeas corpus would be restored, and
that the unpopular income tax would be repealed. If all went well at Amiens,
where the British and French envoys were meeting to draw up the defini-
tive peace treaty, the way would be clear for steadily improving relations
with France, perhaps even for a commercial agreement which would re-
open the entire Continent to British merchants.

2. Lord CornwaUis Recommends

The man whom Addington selected to negotiate at Amiens had the con-
fidence of the people: General Charles CornwaUis, the first Marquess Corn-
wallis. No one held against him any longer his unfortunate surrender to
George Washington: it had been so long ago. Since then, he had main-
tained British dignity as Viceroy of Ireland and it would have been, unfair
to blame him for the troubles there. Beyond question he was a staunch
soldier; would he not therefore be a strong diplomat? In pitting him against
the French, Addington felt, John Bull's character at its sterling best would
be made a barrier to French cunning and trickery and the choice would
be popular in the press.

The Prime Minister believed that the Amiens treaty would be an easy
elaboration of the preliminary articles already agreed upon. Twenty years
earlier, when Shelburae had sent Oswald to Franklin, he had known that he
could count on Franklin to appreciate the candor of his envoy without
abusing it. But the selection of Cornwallis to deal with Bonaparte lacked
any such rationale. It was like sending an amiable old hippopotamus to
negotiate with a young lion. The thickness of his skin could not save liim.

Cornwallis was instructed to go first to Paris,, talk with Bonaparte lumpd^
and try to arrive at an informal understanding before proceedfag to
Amiens. This was especially important since thcpe wore some important
matters which had been omitted from the preliminary articles, A word from
Bonaparte could greatly simplify the talks at Amiens. And at a!

[ 192] THE POUNDING SURF OF CRISIS l8o2-l8l2

an effort was to be made to prevent Talleyrand from being delegated as
the French negotiator; for any treaty of which Talleyrand was coauthor
would be suspect in England. The Marquess obediently avoided Talley-
rand, obtained an audience with Bonaparteand was painfully offended
by his cold and patronizing reception. The First Consul, then in his early
thirties, talked to him almost as to a schoolboy; and it was true that in his
eyes English generals were merely elderly schoolboys in uniform. The pre-
liminary articles of London, he said, spoke for themselves. There was no
need for him to become personally involved in the final treaty. He would
be represented at Amiens by his brother, Joseph Bonaparte, surely a suffi-
cient proof of his regard for the importance of the meeting. So long as the
British lived up to the preliminary articles, there need be no difficulties.
And now, if the General would excuse him . . .

With this Cornwallis had to be content. At Amiens, he found himself
facing brother Joseph, who was courteous enough, but whose instructions
were to entrench himself behind the letter of the preliminary articles, and
go no farther. Cornwallis manfully applied himself to his task. The most
difficult problem, as he saw it, was to find ways of assuring that, after the
transfer of Malta to the Knights of St. John* the island would remain neutral,
with France, like England, unable to reoccupy it

Joseph Bonaparte had a suggestion. Would not the best guarantee of
neutrality be simply to demolish the forts on the island, and render it mili-
tarily indefensible? The idea struck the honest Cornwallis as entirely rea-
sonable. That it might have been put out simply as a test of England's final
purpose did not occur to him. Instead of quietly evading the suggestion,
he offered to transmit it to Addington, with the recommendation that it
be accepted, as an earnest of British good faith. Nothing could have been
better calculated to give Bonaparte a glimpse of the real views of British
authority on the peace. Addington had no more understanding of what
the French were up to than Cornwallis. He discussed the matter with his
Cabinetand was startled by the violence of its objections. The Admiralty
in particular stood aghast at the thought of reducing Malta to helplessness,
when the island would soon be needed again to support the Navy in war.
Against England's admirals and generals the Prime Minister dared not
press the point, and the word want back to Cornwallis: the Maltese forts
most stay intact

Like spreading ripples in a lake,, the consequences flowed. Cornwallis was
compelled to tell Joseph Bonaparte that some other method of solving the
problem would need to be found. Joseph, hardly surprised, sent this word
on to his brother in Paris. It merely confirmed Napoleon's expectation. First
L'Ambigu, now this. Pitt or no Pitt, the British Government aimed only
at a truce, not at a peace.

THE TRIGGERING OF WAR [ 193 J

3. "I Am Sanguine . . ?

The First Consul gave orders to Joseph to continue negotiations, to raise
difficulties, to concede nothing of importance. It was evident to him that
Addington was counting on the treaty to secure his political status, and
would in consequence be a weak opponent. England, not France, would
make the compromises. Meanwhile, under cover of the talks, the French
position on the continent would be consolidated. There was nothing in
the articles which had been signed in London to prevent Bonaparte from
establishing a republic in North Italy, with himself as President. At a later
time, there would be nothing, technically, to prevent Switzerland from sim-
ilarly being brought under French "protection" to the exclusion of British
commercial interests there.

Englishmen in the ruling classes were infuriated by news of the forma-
tion of the Italian Republic,, seeing in it proof that Bonaparte's appetite
for conquest had not diminished. Nevertheless, the negotiation at Amiens
proceeded on its higgling way. By a concession here and a concession there,
authorized by the anxious Addington, Cornwallis finally extracted Joseph
Bonaparte's signature on the treaty. Triumphantly, the Prime Minister
announced the news in his uniquely pompous style. "I am sanguine. . . .
that a system may be adopted, which, by keeping clear of the extreme of
distrust on the one hand and of credulity and weakness on the other, will
be suited to the temper, character and interest of both countries/'

4. "A Fen of Stagnant Waters"

Crowds in London's streets cheered the first proclamation of the treaty,
cheered again when it was reported that Bonaparte had declared a "festi-
val of the peace" in France, cheered still louder when William Pitt himself
advised ratification of the treaty by Parliament. They could not know that
Pitt had just written a private letter stating his conviction that "no compact
or covenant made with Bonaparte could be secure," For a while thereafter
Addington enjoyed the illusion of success. He had listened to the crowds,
and he really believed in his popularity. Even the debate on ratification in
Parliament did not generate enough heat to dispel the rosy mist* GreBville,
in the Lords, sneered at so much weakness in one piece of paper; in the
Commons, Pitt's friends attacked the agreement on Malta, while Pitt him-
self sat in enigmatic silence; but both Houses gave Addington their votes.

Immediately after ratification, many members of Parliament eagerly
journeyed to Paris, which had been closed to them for tm y&is* ?ad
where the gay life offered blessed relief from Hanoverian austerity. Among
the visitors was the unreconstructed Whig, Charles James Fox, openly
gloating over he treaty as a final blow to the hopes of the Bourbons, An

[ 194! TBE FOUNDING SXJKF OF CRISIS l8o2~l8l2

old-time friend of French republicanism, lie was presented to Bonaparte,
who was himself feding expansive, for the French Senate, like good pup-
pets, had just urged him to become Consul for life. He gave Fox warm
assurances of his good will toward the British people, and Fox carried back
to England his feding that Bonaparte, who had drunk his fill of glory on the
battlefield, was now ready to devote himself to the prosperity of a France
at peace. But the most significant moment of their talk had come when it
turned to the subject of assassination. A complex plot to kill King George,
which was headed by an Irish army officer with the singularly appropriate
name of Despard, had not long before been uncovered in England. Despard
was erroneously thought by many Englishmen to be an agent of Bonaparte;
and this dishonoring accusation was in the Consul's mind as he remarked
that an attempt to assassinate him some time earlier had been instigated by
Pitt As an Englishman, Fox felt that he had to deny the charge, but he
could not fail to catch its implication. Bonaparte regarded Pitt as his sworn
enemy. A return of Pitt to power in England would be taken as a warlike
move.

This was also the view in England's best informed circles. In the great
houses of British society, amused men made bets on how long "the Doctor,"
as Addington was dubbed, would remain as Prime Minister. The final
authority in England then rested less in the cabinet than in a congeries of
political-minded and articulate aristocrats from among whom every admin-
istration was virtually compelled to draw its members. These mighty men
would sometimes grudgingly permit a talented commoner to set the pace
for England if he was strong and able enough to persuade them, but they
would never accept him merely because he would obey them. Although as
a temporary expedient they had allowed Pitt to foist Addington on them,,
it was apparent that the man had soon to go,

For the ordinaiy Englishman, the dissatisfaction felt with Addington was
not based on political grounds or on aristocratic prejudice. It was a felt lack
of moral leadership. The country, as it watched its well-meaning Prime
Minister, somehow seemed to be losing its self-respect At a time when
the ruler of France was the victor of Mareago and the President of the
United States was the author of the Declaration of Independence, Ad-
dington seemed to stand for nothing in particular. There was no inspiration
in the man, or in the country under his rule. WflKam Wordsworth caught
this feeling in the despairing poem in which he called England in 1802
"a fen of stagnant waters." Creative activity seemed to be at low tide. There
was Europe, experiencing a surge of brilliant and original activity in the
arts and sciences. It was the year when Gauss opened the gate to higher
mathematics with his theory of numbers, when Cuvier broke new ground

THE TRIGGERING OF WAR [ IQj]

in anatomical science, when Beethoven celebrated Bonaparte in the Eroica
Symphony, when Pestalozzi uncovered modern principles of child educa-
tion. By contrast the best that England could show were further technical
improvements in the power machinery of Manchester's cotton mills.

5. Troubles of a Well-Intended Man

Not many persons had any idea of what was actually happening as the
Tory hierarchy decided on war. To paraphrase G. K. Chesterton, it was a
secret too important to be told to the government, an occult secret which
the political priestcraft kept for the privacy of its rituals in clubs and draw-
ing rooms. Addington, on the other hand, was making a mistake fatal to
public men, of not being private at all Everyone knew his plans for peace,
and his enemies were prompt to blow them up in advance. He did not have
an inkling of the most terrible truth of politics that peace is attractive only
in wartime. He had no idea of the extent to which an energetic nation
must continuously be stimulated, titillated, and kept occupied with hopeful
and creative work if it is to be content with peace. Because the war had
stopped, he thought that it had ended. Even the Admiralty's stand on Malta
he did not take very seriously; he still intended, in the summer of 1802,
to give up the island, as agreed.

No one had ever told the Prime Minister that while a statesman through
his own efforts can easily make things worse* a good deal of help from the
universe is required to make them better. There was no humility in him.
His powers seemed greater to him than they were. He really thought that
the authority of his high office would allow him to reshape British policy.
It was a shock to him to discover the strength of his enemies.

The opening salvo against his peace came from William Windham, a
member of Pitt's private circle. When the Amiens treaty was submitted to
Parliament, Windham made a speech so devastating, so comprehensively
critical, that even though it did not prevent ratification, it dispelled hope.
He was merely contemptuous of the weakness which had ceded the island
of Elba to France which had adjusted the boundaries of Guianawhich
enabled the French and Spanish to trade on equal terms with Engknd at
Cape Town; but the cession of Malta he found inconceivable and wickfedL
He warned against the too rapid easing of restrictions on American trade
with the British West Indies, at the expense of British merchants. He codd
see only blind folly in allowing Bonaparte to send an army to 'Santo Do-
mingo, or to occupy Louisiana. Had the Prime Minister no regard for ft
security of lie British Eoapiie? Were British interests to be foped out f
tike Caribbean as they had beet* forced out of North Italy? Was Fiance to
become a commercial rival of England in South America,
the colonies of fdteriog Spain as tibey fell

[ 196 ] THE POXINXHNG SURF OF CRISIS l8o2-l8l2

The country was sobered by these questions. It listened also to another
voice, that of the young^ brilliant, and contentious George Canning, one
of Pitt's foremost disciples, and a popular versifier. He made a little doggerel
couplet that caught on:

As London to Paddingfon
So Pitt is to Addington.

A poem from his direct pen advised the country that if war came again,
it "should turn to the pilot who weathered the storm." But his most telling
blow was delivered a little later in Parliament. "I am no panegyrist of
Bonaparte but I cannot shut my eyes to the ascendancy of his genius . . .
To stand up against him ... we want arms of the same kind . . . one great
commanding spirit!" Whether he meant Pitt or himself was not altogether
clear. In those days, every ambitious young politician secretly dreamed of
himself as another Bonaparte, and in Canning, as his subsequent career
showed, ambition was rampant. In any case, it was ludicrous to think of
Addington as a "great commanding spirit."

Pitt continued cautious, maintained good personal relations with the
Prime Minister, and gave advice when called upon. Nevertheless, it came
to him as a surprise to discover that this creature, whom he had used for a
specific purpose, now actually fancied himself as a statesman in his own
right, and had no intention of stepping down from the seat of power.
Pitt's feelings burst out when, after a talk with Addington in July 1802, he
described him to friends as "the vainest man he had ever met with," and
again as "a man of little mind, of consummate vanity, and of very slender
abilities." He was particularly incensed by the Doctor's handling of the
nation's finances. In his bid for popularity, Addington had grossly over-
estimated the government's revenues, insanely cut away taxes, invited a
dangerous deficit, and reflected on Pitt's own stern budgetary administra-
tion.

The pressure from Pitt's followers in Parliament was hard enough for
Addington to bear, but all at once he was struck by a cannonade from a
totally unexpected quarter. England's master of controversial prose, William
Gobbett, had left America in disgust after the Republican victory (and after
being successfully sued for libel) and on his return to England had founded
a new and widely read foumal, the Political Register. Late in 1802,. a series
of scathing open letters to Addington in this newspaper set London agog.
Cobbett pointed out something that other British publicists were overlook-
ingthe significance of the attitude of the United States to England's
future. The Peace of Amiens, it was evident, meant French commercial
supremacy on the continent. Where, then, wore British merchants to turn
for business? How was England, with its markets shraokeii, to pay for the

THE TRIGGERING OF WAR [ 197 ]

food imports on which its survival increasingly depended? As matters stood,
the American market was not to be counted on, whereas American com-
petition could be ruinous. And Addington, by suspending England's war-
time restrictions on American trade, was encouraging that competition.
"Be you assured, Sir/' Cobbett wrote, "that one part of the plan of the
rulers of Fiance is to make the interest of America coincide with the ruin
of England, and in the prosecution of this plan, nothing can be imagined
more effectual than the granting to America, what she has so long and so
anxiously sought for,, those commercial concessions, which England will
not, which England cannot grant her."

Bleakly, Cobbett followed his train of logic to its conclusion. If Adding-
ton maintained his American policy, England's favorable balance in trade
with America would swiftly dimmish. American industry was expanding.
Soon the United States might be expected to adopt protective tariffs in
order to keep out British imports. Continential trade therefore had to be
assured at any cost. If it turned out that war with Bonaparte also meant
war with Jefferson's America, even this was preferable to the certainty of
economic collapse under the Addington peace. Prepare for war; lay the
foundation for another European coalition against France, so that England
would not have to fight alone; this was the final meaning of Gobbetts
message.

The Parliamentary attacks on the Prime Minister fed on the Politicd
Register. As the country's confidence wavered, business began to slump,
prices on the Stock Exchange to fall; and those who had been warm to
Addington turned cool. Pitt chose this time to break off relations with him,
a sure sign that he intended to supersede him.

6. Victory Without War?

There was an unexpected streak of doggedness in Addington. Urgings
that he resign at once in favor of Pitt left him hurt but unmoved. He ignored
an ominous remark by King George, who had returned briefly to lucidity,
that the peace was, after all, only "experimental." The Prime Minister was
not, as his critics alleged, without a foreign policy. He did not rely on peace
by ingemination. On the contrary, he counted on a very definite stetegy
to achieve his goal. And that goal was nothing less than victory withcrat
war a peace which would restore the power and profits of British com-
merce in Europe and elsewhere.

Addington was often unwise, but he had sense enough to feat BonajBrtfe ? s
designs. And it was because of this fear ttart he had &@ readty lagmxl to
France's Requisition of Louisiana, Repoife from America had eoiroficecl
him that the United States would never peac^fely peinraA tibe Mississippi
j?* an"which tap heart- w* set,-, to

[ 198 ] THE POUNDING SURF OF CRISIS l8o2-l8l2

of the shrewd permanent officials of the Foreign Office was that Addington
should do everything in his power to encourage the movement of French
troops across the Atlantic, for when France and America stood face to
face in hostility, England could breathe easier. In this spirit, British ships
were lent to Bonaparte to facilitate landings of his troops on Santo Do-
mingo, and the retrocession of Louisiana to France by Spain was given
every diplomatic encouragement.

Simultaneously, Addington looked for ways to inflame American opinion
against the retrocession. Through the year 1801, ignoring widespread rumor,
the French and Spanish governments had preserved the secrecy of the
Treaty of San Ildefonso, at which Charles IV agreed to give up his trouble-
some colony of Louisiana, if France would augment the Italian possessions
of his son-in-law, the Duke of Parma. England's first need was for indispu-
table evidence of the treat/s existence evidence which would give Presi-
dent Jefferson firm ground on which to base a protest against it. With this
purpose, the British Minister at Madrid, John Frere, was instructed to ob-
tain a copy of the treaty by whatever means.

There was one man in Spain on whom Frere could pin his hopes Manuel
de Godoy, the proud Prime Minister and former lover of Queen Luisa,
who had conferred on him no less a title than "Prince of Peace." Godoy
hated and feared Bonaparte, and for months had been delaying the formal
transfer of Louisiana on one pretext after another. Unlike King Charles, he
believed that Spain's interests demanded close ties to England. It was easy
for Frere to establish a friendly intimacy with him, with the result that early
in November 1801,, the Prince of Peace handed him a copy of the coveted
treaty. It went to London by fast courier, and was promptly given to Ruf us
Kingk the American minister in London, who, on November 20, dispatched
it to Secretary of State Madison.

7. "We Must Many Ourselves to the British Fleef'
From the moment in January 1802, when President Jefferson read the
Treaty of San Ildefonso, he realized that he and the Republican Party stood
in the giavest political jeopardy. If Bonaparte were not prevented from ob-
taining control of New Orleans, the Federalists would have an overwhelm-
ing issue on which to return to power. Hamilton had wished in 1798 to
lead an army against the Spaniards and make Louisiana part of the United
States; and the crushing attacks that he would now be in a position to direct
against Jefferson's pro-French policy would be as damaging as those of the
XYZ affair. Even the western Republican vote might be lost, for the men of
Kentucky, Tennessee, and Ohio would never forgive the party that allowed
France to dominate the Mississippi
As soon as news of the treaty became public, the Fedeialist: press began

THE TRIGGERING OF WAR [ 199 ]

its drumfire of criticism. The New York Commercial Advertiser recorded
Hamilton's position. Either the United States would have to seize New
Orleans by force or be prepared to lose her western states, since they would
"join those who will be in possession of the navigation of the Mississippi
. . . they cannot do without it." The way for the United States to get New
Orleans, said the Commercial Advertiser, was by an alliance with England
in war against France. This article appeared on March 12, 1802. A few
weeks later, Jefferson boldly espoused almost identical views. In this re-
versal, he was motivated by much more than a desire to protect his party's
position in the west. His own vision of America's future did not permit him
to tolerate Bonaparte's plan. The President's writings of the period show
that he felt in his blood the gigantic stirring of the young nation,, and
thrilled like a boy to the idea of distant explorations beyond the Mississippi.
His dream of a great continental republic was being challenged as well as
his conception of his own role in American history. Both were all at once
in conflict with his avowed foreign policy. He had built his reputation as
a friend of France, as an enemy of monarchical England, and as a stern
opponent of what he had termed "entangling alliances" with Europe. At
a single stroke, the Treaty of San Ildefonso had made these positions obso-
lete. Now, like every great statesman in time of crisis, he put reality before
doctrine and followed his intuition at the expense of consistency.

His extraordinary capacity to adapt to new circumstances, and to sacrifice
any theory which failed to prove itself in practice,, expressed itself in a long
and tempestuous letter to Robert Livingston in Paris, containing a message
for Bonaparte. "We stand completely corrected of the error that either the
Government or the nation of France has any remains of friendship for
us . . . The cession of Louisiana ... to France works most sorely on the
United States. It will form a new epoch in our political course . . . There is
on the globe one single spot, the possessor of which is our natural and
habitual enemy. It is New Orleans through which the produce of three-
eighths of our territory must pass to market . . . The day that France takes
possession of New Orleans fixes the sentence which is to restrain her [the
United States] forever within her low-water mark . . . From that moment,
we must marry ourselves to the British fleet and nation." This from Jeffer-
son!

To deliver this aggressive statement to Livingston he turned to Du Pbnt
de Nemours, who was within a few days of sailing for France, To Dti Pont
the President wrote urging him to warn France of a war "perhaps not wy
bug hence^ one "which will annihilate her on the ocean/' *T you can be
the means of infomung the wisdom of Bonaparte of al the consequences,
you have deserved wdl of both countries."

Da Pout, ,Iowefr, ,-was a loyal Frepchman^ as wdl as aitieod of feffenoa.

[2OO] THE POUNDING SURF OF CRISIS l8o2-l8l2

He considered the President's stand to be extreme and somewhat unfair,
and he said so. Why offend Bonaparte's military pride, and thus make war
certain? In a cogent letter, he asked the President to look at the matter from
the French point of view. France and Spain both took it as certain that the
United States, once in possession of New Orleans, would promptly begin to
covet Mexico, especially the region north of the Rio Grande. "That your
nation,, Mr. President . . . think of conquering Mexico is not questionable."
If these militaristic ambitions were indulged, the principles of democracy
would be forgotten, and the American Republic would be corrupted for-
ever. Why not, instead, approach the matter in a spirit of peace, and offer
France a "liberal and generous" cash paymentwhich Bonaparte badly
neededfor New Orleans?

This letter somewhat annoyed Jefferson, but at the same time it struck
his imagination. He had thought of purchasing Louisiana from Spain; why
not from France? The government's financial position had been greatly
strengthened under Gallatin's shrewd guidance, so that the money might be
found. The President talked with James Madison, and the Secretary of
State promptly wrote to Livingston, asking him to explore with the French
government tie possibility of a sale of New Orleans. The Floridas also
were to be discussed, for word had come that Bonaparte was pressing the
Spaniards to yield Mobile and Pensacola.

8. Godoy Determined

Spaniards know how to hate, and in Madrid, Manuel de Godoy, the
Prince of Peace, hating Bonaparte for a dozen personal, as well as for
patriotic reasons, had become almost fanatical in his determination to thwart
the French dictator. But how? He knew that King Charles needed better
grounds than he had to delay further in carrying out the San Ildefonso
treaty. Bonaparte had increased the size of the promised Italian territories
to the point where the temptation was irresistible to the dynastic-minded
Queen Luisa,, whose pressure upon the wavering King was, in the final
test, bound to be greater than Godo/s. His arguments in the council
chamber could not suffice much longer to keep Louisiana out of Bonaparte's
hands and not only Louisiana, but West Florida and Mexico, for with
French troops in New Orleans the adjacent provinces would be easy prey.

Godoy was something of a peacock, but there was m him a hard core of
toughness and a considerable finesse in the use of diplomatic weapons. The
possibilities of procrastination had not yet been fully exploited. Spain's
envoy in Washington had reported that in American political circles a proj-
ect to buy Louisiana from the French was much mooted. Here was a point
on which King Charles could hardly fail to support a Spanish negative
and if France refused to heed it, the retrocession could again be postponed.

THE TRIGGERING OF WAR [ 2O1 ]

Following this line of thought, Godoy requested the French minister in
Madrid, St Cyi^ to infonn Talleyrand that the Treaty of San Ildefonso
would be implemented only on condition that Fiance pledge heiself not
to sell Louisiana to a third party.

A good effort, it nevertheless proved futile. In Talleyrand, Godoy was up
against a man five times as clever and ten times as unscrupulous as himself.
An official note from Paris promptly removed the difficulty. Spain's attitude
"perfectly conforms with the intentions of the French Government," said
the French Foreign Minister, and he avowed "in the name of the First
Consul" that "France will never alienate" the reacquired territory.

But Godoy had another and stronger pretext for delaythe need to define
the boundaries of Louisiana, and of the Italian lands to be given to
Spain. Specifically, he had resolved and obtained the King's agreement
that West Florida was definitely to be excluded from the retrocession. Here
he felt that he had Bonaparte on the hip, for it was a point on which France
could not lightly yield. If New Orleans was to be defended from the sea
against possible blockade by the British fleet, it would be necessary for the
French to prevent England from using Mobile and Pensacola as bases.
Strategically, possession of West Florida was essential to the security of
Louisiana a fact which the First Consul could not ignore, and which
promised to prolong indefinitely the bargaining over the retrocession.

With grim pleasure, Godoy informed Paris of the Spanish position on
West Florida. The result might have been predicted. There arrived posthaste
in Madrid a new French envoy, General de Beumonville, with an offer
designed to tempt the King and Queen beyond resistance. If Bonaparte
could have the Floridas, he would create for the benefit of the Queen's
relatives a new Italian kingdom, not just a dukedom, to include all of fertile
Tuscany and wealthy Parma, But even for this powerful move Godoy bad a
counter. So far-reaching a rearrangement of Italian territory, he said, could
hardly be undertaken without the consent of other interested European
powers. With this excuse^ he sent for John Frere, and with tongue in cheek,
desired to know whether England would consent to Bonaparte's plan for
the Floridas and Parma. Frere went through the correct motion of ask-
ing London for an opinion, and was soon able to give Gqdoy a formal
answer England would not consent At the same time, a messenger wait
to St. Petersburg with the same question. This gave Czar Alexander an
excuse to inform Spain that he was unalterably opposed to the cession of
Parra^ to Spain; k his view,, tk& estates of thedmcby rightfully t>elofigt4 ,1^
the King of Sardinia. , '

A diplomatic ring bad been formed around Fiance. With elat
did not bother to cquceal* Godoy summoned Beumoaville to ,

[ 2O2 ] THE POUNDING SURF OF CKISIS l8o2-l8l2

and told him (in words which the French envoy reported to Talleyrand)
that "the British minister had declared to him . . . that his Britannic
Majesty . . . could never consent that the two Floridas should become an
acquisition of the Republic; that the United States of America were in this
respect of one mind with the Court of London; and that Russia equally
objected to France disposing of the estates of Parma in favor of Spain."
Added Beurnonville, "In imparting to me this procedure of the British
minister, the Prince had a satisfied air, which showed how much he wished
that the exchange, almost agreed upon and so warmly desired by the Queen,
should not take place,"

Godoy had checked Bonaparte, but he was not foolish enough to think
that he had achieved checkmate. He knew well enough that while Bonaparte
preferred to have legal title to West Florida, it was not absolutely essential
to his purposes. If he were to accept Louisiana on Spain's terms, he could
certainly find an excuse to put troops into Mobile and Pensacola soon
thereafter; and what could Spain do to stop him?

9. Bonaparte Encouraged

The First Consul meanwhile found himself in a quandary. If he did not
soon occupy New Orleans* there was a real possibility that the wrathful
Americans of the western states might decide to drive out the Spaniards by
force, and so forestall him. The Spanish garrison at New Orleans was small,
and whatever its loyalty to King Charles, it had none to France. Only the
early presence of a substantial French army in Louisiana could assure a
successful occupation. But Leclerc's troops, on which he had counted for
the purpose, were being seriously dekyed in Santo Domingo. It now ap-
peared that suppression of the "slave republic" would not be easy. The
voluntary surrender of Toussaint (who made the error of trusting to Bona-
parte's honor, and so perished miserably in a French dungeon) had not
broken the spirit of the rebellious Negroes, who, as Leclerc wrote, were
"incredible fanatics" in their desire for independence. Terroristic methods,
toituie and lingering death could not break their spirit The seventeen thou-
sand men under his command, Leclerc told Napoleon in an early letter,
would not be enough to blast flue rebels out of their mountain fortresses,
since at the same time he had to defend the coastal towns and plantations
against native attacks. Trusting in his brother-in-law's judgment, Bonaparte
in the spring of 1802 ordered an additional expeditionary force of ten thou-
sand seasoned troops, accompanied by squadrons of the French fleet, to
Santo Domingo. It was his thought that after the reconquest of the island,
these troops, at least, could be moved on to New Orleans.

West Florida was a stumbling block; but suddenly in the summer of 1802,

THE TRIGGERING OF WAR [ 2OJ ]

the splendid news came that Godoy had unaccountably changed his mind
in the matter. A letter from Spain offered to carry through the retrocession
of Louisiana without further delay, merely reserving the question of West
Florida. If Bonaparte suspected an ulterior motive, he shrugged it aside.
Louisiana was his at last; that was enough; the rest would follow*

10. Addington Disturbed

It seemed to Henry Addington that he stood close to one of the great
diplomatic triumphs of British history. Reports from the West Indies said
that the French army in Santo Domingo had ran into unexpectedly strong
native resistance. This was great news for England. By encouraging Bona-
parte to extend himself across the Atlantic, the Prime Minister believed, he
was draining the strength of France and preserving the peace of Europe.
The news was heartening. Edward Thornton, the British charg< d'affaires
in Washington, reported an increasing disposition on the part of the
American Government to cultivate British friendship, and an evident
determination not to yield control of the Mississippi to the French without
a fight. "He [President Jefferson] reiterated to me with additional force
the resolution of the country never to abandon the claim of free navigation
. . . declaring that should they be obliged at last to resort to force, they
would throw away the scabbard" Frere in Madrid, in his own way was
equally encouraging in his accounts of Godoy's position. The West Florida
transaction appeared to have reached an impasse.

Time was working against Bonaparte, Addington thought. The United
States was in an angry mood. France had pledged herself not to sell Loui-
siana. England's navy commanded the Caribbean. While Godoy held fast
France could not get Mobile and control of the Gulf of Mexico. In Europe
the strength of Austria and Prussia was reviving. Russia had taken a for-
bidding attitude toward Bonaparte. It seemed to the British Prime Minister
that his diplomacy was about to triumph where the great Pitt's militancy
had failed. England might even be able to hold on to Malta without war.
The writing of the Maltese clause of the treaty had been slipshod, and
technical reasons had been found for postponing the cession. As soon as
Bonaparte's embarrassments sufficiently enmeshed him, a new treaty, re-
flecting the altered balance of power, could be initiated.

Then, all at once, the outlook darkened. To his concern and bewilder-
meat, Addington learned that Godoy had come forward with an ofer to
cany out the retrocession of Louisiana immediately, th&t Qaoapa^ hpid
instantly agreed, and that the matter was setfledl Frere in Madrid was un-
able to explain Godo/s change of mind. It was a shock^ it was
meat, it was a mystery.

[ 204] THE POUNDING SURF OF CRISIS l8o2-l8l2

ii. "Very Secref

Behind the mystery of Godoy's abrupt decision to give up Louisiana
without further delay was an extraordinary chain of circumstance, which
began with a letter from New Orleans dated July 1801. For months this
letter had lain almost unnoticed in the office of Spain's Secretary of the
Treasury, Soler. Written by the Intendant of Louisiana, the chief finance
officer there, its burden was that America had been guilty of violations of the
rales established by Pinckney's Treaty, under which the Spanish authorities
in New Orleans regulated America's Mississippi commerce. These rules pro-
vided that goods arriving by river boats might be deposited in the city's
warehouses, until they could be transshipped to ocean going vessels, and
that goods imported from abroad for the American trade might be similarly
stored pending the upriver haul. In both cases the Spanish authorities had
the right to supervise the movement of the goods and to impose a tax of
6 per cent on their value.

The Intendant, who had charge of "the American deposit/' wrote to
Soler that he suspected some Kentucky boatmen of smuggling goods out of
New Orleans without paying the required tax, and worse, of smuggling
Spanish gold coinage, export of which was strictly forbidden. Soler did not
get around to consideration of the problem until the spring of 1802, after
the Peace of Amiens had been signed. Then it seemed to him an issue
grave enough to require a decision at a higher level. For in the writing of
Pinckney's Treaty in 1795, Godoy had insisted on authority to discontinue
the right of deposit after three years, and Pinckney (against the advice of
subordinates) had accepted the stipulation, in the conviction that Spain
would not dare to act upon it. Spain therefore could, if she chose, legally
close the deposit as a punishment and warning to lawbreaking Americans.
However, the political consequences of such action could hardly fail to be
very grave. The Mississippi trade had expanded enormously and become
exceedingly profitable since 1795, paralleling the large increase of the
American population in the valley towns. Treaty or no treaty, it was certain
that the American government would regard closure of the deposit as a
hostile act, conceivably justifying war. And the Creole population of New
Orleans, which indirectly prospered greatly from Mississippi trade, might
be expected to stand with the Americans,

Soler relieved himself of the burden of the affair by bringing it to the
attention of Spain's Foreign Secretary, Pedro CevaUos which meant to
the attention of Godoy, for Cevallos was no more than his puppet. At
that point,, the problem coincided with the Prince's need to ind some way
out of his difficulties in connection with West Florida. Queen Luisa was
pressing him hard from one side, General Beumonvffie from the other, to

THE TRIGGERING OF WAR [ 205 ]

meet Bonaparte's terms. Whether he liked it or not, the time was nearly at
hand when the Treaty of San Ildefonso would be put into effect

A question remained in his mind: since Louisiana had to go to Fiance,
could it at least be made so hot for Bonaparte as to burn his hands? It was
in this connection that the letter from the Intendant of Louisiana struck
his imagination. If King Charles would stand by him, the Frenchman might
yet be taught a lesson.

Wheels turned within the Court, and presently Cevallos wrote a confi-
dential note to Treasurer Soler. King Charles, he said, had authorized im-
mediate discontinuance of the New Orleans deposit, and he enclosed a
royal order, marked '"Very Secret," to that effect. This was in July 1802.
Simultaneously, Cevallos was instructed to notify Talleyrand that no further
obstacles would be interposed to the retrocession of Louisiana. A trap had
been baited for Bonaparte.

The royal order regarding the deposit, which Soler promptly dispatched
to the Intendant of Louisiana, Juan Morales, contained an extraordinary
caution. Under no circumstances was Morales to let it be known that such
an order existed. The plan to close the deposit was to be concealed until
the last moment not only from France and America, but even from other
Spanish officials in Louisiana. The public would be told that Morales took
the action on his own initiative, in accordance with the existing treaty be-
tween America and Spain, under which the right of deposit had long since
expired.

12. Bonaparte Trapped

At last Louisiana belonged to France on paper, at least but the First
Consul's mood of optimism did not last long. Within a few weeks, he re-
ceived the first of a series of dream-shattering reports from Leclero-reports
which were to alter the trends of French, British, and American history.
An epidemic of yellow fever had wrecked his hopes as all of Europe's
generals and diplomats had not been able to do. Of 28,300 French soldiers
in Santo Domingo, only 4000, wrote Leclerc, were fit for service. 'The
occupation of Santo Domingo has until now cost us 24,000 men, and we
are not yet definitely masters of it" The story of the hosts of Sennacherib
had been repeated. "My position," wrote Leclerc, who would himself soon
be dead of the fever ". . . has become very bad ... In order to be master
of Santo Domingo, you must send me 12,000 men without losing a single
day." Later, even before these 12,000 arrived, he asked for an additional
5000 men, and for over a milKon dollars in gold. Otherwise "St* Domingo
will be forever lost to France."

Although Bonaparte's closest mflitaiy advisors protested the sending of
additional reinforcements, although he himself was enraged by the ?situatiop,

[206] THE POUNDING SURF OF CRISIS l8o2-l8l2

he saw no choice. His entire transatlantic strategy, his hope of an American
empire, hinged on the rapid reduction of Santo Domingo. Shipyards in the
north of France, and even in Holland, began to work at a frenzied pace in
order to build the additional naval vessels and troop transports required.
Regiment after regiment of veteran soldiers was equipped for expeditionary
duty in the Caribbean, until nearly 50,000 Frenchmen had been sent there
to die.

As Bonaparte saw the situation in the autumn of 1802, the large number
of troops in Santo Domingo made an early occupation of New Orleans
more important than ever. It was only from a Louisiana in French hands
that he could count on a dependable supply of food-stuffs for Santo
Domingo over any considerable period. He envisaged American wheat
moving to the French West Indies to feed his men; they meanwhile would
subdue the island, and restore its exports of sugar and coffee to Europe. The
resulting large profits would of course go into the treasury of France. Noth-
ing was to be allowed to interfere with this purpose. Consequently, he was
seriously disturbed by Jefferson's warning that the United States would
not peacefully accept French possession of Louisiana. The immediate
problem, he felt, was to allay American fears. When Robert Livingston
asked whether France would consider the sale of New Orleans and the
Floridas, Bonaparte gave him some encouragement, although privately he
considered the notion ridiculous.

Subsequently, as the year 1802 approached its end, he instructed his man
in Washington, Pichon, to give a pledge to President Jefferson that France,
as owner of Louisiana, would preserve American rights in the free navigation
of the Mississippi. But the hope that he had induced a softening of the
American attitude was short-lived. The news from New Orleans of Spain's
sudden and arbitrary revocation of America's right of deposit at the mouth
erf the Mississippi knocked the props out from under his strategy. At this
moment, the assurances of French good will which he had sent to Jefferson
became worthless. Pichoa reported that the United States had exploded
witib anger. Even though France had ot yet formally taken possession at
New Orleans^ it was'asmmied that Bonaparte^ whose troops were expected
there any day* was responsible for the provocative order. The American
peopk^ Pichon wrote unhappily^ stood ready to figftt side by side with Eng-
land against what they considered to be a France beet on the conquest of
their continent

Godo/s trap had dosed around Boaaparta He could net go forward, he
could not go back. His frustration burst out in oaths which startled his
listeners, and showed which way the wind was beginning to blow: "Damn
sugar, damn coffee, damn colonies!" To occupy Louisiana meant a war be

THE TRIGGERING OF WAR [207]

dared not risk. With Santo Domingo devouring his finest troops, with the
problem of supplying them from France daily becoming more difficult and
costly, with England's navy able at any time to cut his supply routes* he
was frantic.

13. The Wrong Inference

News of the closing of the New Orleans deposit reached Washington in
the middle of November 1802. By that time,, the American West was roar-
ing with rage at the unexpected assault upon its established ways and its
prosperity. Although the withdrawal of the right of deposit did not deny
to the United States the free navigation of the Mississippi, it materially cut
away the benefits of navigational rights. Without warehouses, the huge
Mississippi flatboats would have to remain loaded in the river until their
cargoes could be transferred directly to ocean-going vesselsan intolerable
nuisance. Soon, in the popular mind, the idea grew that Spain had closed
the river itself to American boats. Secretary of State Madison sent a somber
note to Madrid stressing the gravity of the crisis as seen by the rivermen:
"The Mississippi is to them everything. It is the Hudson, the Delaware, the
Potomac, and all the navigable rivers of the Atlantic States, formed into
one stream." Caustic reproof by Jefferson to the Spanish minister in Wash-
ington,, Irufo, so alarmed him that he demanded instant revocation of the
order from New Orleans, for he did not know of its origin in Madrid; and
he sent a screaming protest of his own to Godoy.

A rash of violent denunciations of Spain broke out in the press. Kentucky's
leading newspaper, the Palladium of Frankfort, stated that if the President
would go to war for the Mississippi, Kentucky alone would contribute
twenty-six thousand militiamen, and eleven thousand rifles. In New York,
Aaron Burr, writing under the name of Coriolanus, published inflammatory
newspaper articles urging the westerners to secede from the union if neces-
sary, and conquer New Orleans themselves. Congress authorized the Presi-
dent to call on the governors of the states for eighty thousand militiamen.
But only a few days after the country learned of the closing of the deposit,
word came from Paris that King Charles had yielded to Bonaparte, and
that France would soon take formal possession of Louisiana. Public opinion
immediately shifted. Now the French were seen as the true villains of the
piece. Within a few weeks, all America believed that the New Orleans
order was a gauntlet flung at Jefferson's feet by the First Consul, The Presi-
dent himself came to this mistaken conclusion. His first diplomatic retort
was to generate rumors that America would shortly enter into foiknal
alliance with England. At various functions where Pichon, the French
charg6, was present, Jefferson made it a point to be seen in confidential
conversation with England's Thornton. Gloomily, 'Pidhkn* "iejpta$ed to

[208] THE FOUNDING SURF OF CRISIS l8o2-l8l2

Talleyrand that he feared the worst. "I noticed at his [Jefferson's] table that
"he redoubled his civilities and attentions to the British charg." "I cannot
help seeing that there is a tendency toward adopting an irrevocably hostile
system/'

For all this play acting, which he enjoyed for its own sportive quality,
Jefferson was still intent on the preservation of peace. And not only for
humanitarian reasons. He saw war as an invitation to political reaction and
the return of the Hamiltonians to power. Already arch-Federalists like
Timothy Pickering and Fisher Ames were reportedly trafficking with Burr
to promote the secession of the West, and create an independent empire
which would absorb Spain's vast dominions in the Americas, The war fever,
Jefferson realized, needed to be reduced, not inflamed. In his annual mes-
sage to Congress, delivered in December 1802, the President carefully
subordinated the Louisiana crisis. Bellicose western congressmen and British
observers were equally disappointed. Edward Thornton wrote to London
that the message was "a very foolish thing."

To calm the West, and so gain time to negotiate the Mississippi crisis,,
Jefferson turned to a recourse on which every President relies when he does
not know what else to do the introduction of a fresh note of hope into the
situation, in the shape of a new and popular personality. The obvious man
in this instance was James Monroe respected in the West, where he owned
large tracts of land esteemed in France, where he had done obeisance to
the Republic acclaimed in the Republican party, for the future leadership
of which he was already contending. Early in 1803, Jefferson named and
the Senate confirmed Monroe as a special envoy to go to Paris and assist
Livingston in persuading the French to the sale of New Orleans. "On the
event of this mission," Jefferson told the Senate* "depend the future
destinies of this Republic." National considerations aside, he saw the effort
as a means to make the westerners fed that their interests were being fully
considered by the government; and of detaching them from the dangerous
plots of Aaron Burr.

It was Jeffiprson's impression, drawn from diplomatic dispatches and news
reports, that France had acquired the Floridas, as well as Louisiana. Not
knowing the full extent of Bonaparte's desperation* he thought America
would be miraculously fortunate if the First Consul would consent to part
with the city of New Orleans, and perhaps the Floridas. The vast remainder
of Louisiana west of the Mississippi he could see no way of dislodging
from French hands. Monroe was told that he and Jjvia^toe migjit offer
$10,000,000 for New Orleans and the Floridas; and that if the negotiation
failedas Jefferson expected it to f ail they Vj e^e to go to London, apd lay
the groundwork for an alliance with England.

THE TRIGGERING OF WAR [ 209 ]

14. The Cutting of the Knot

Weeks before Monroe sailed for France, the indignant letters written by
Irujo to Godoy, warning that the American West was ready to march on
New Orleans, had borne fruit. The Prince of Peace felt it advisable to tempt
the fates no further. He had done his utmost to harm Bonaparte, but it
might be months before France assumed control in New Orleans,, and if
meanwhile the hotheaded Americans were to attack, Spain would become
involved in an unnecessary and disastrous war. By the middle of April
1803, a royal authorization was in the hands of Irujo, empowering him to
instruct Intendant Morales in New Orleans to reopen the deposit im-
mediately. Without a moment's delay, he informed the American govern-
ment of Godoy's new order, and the President promptly published the news
for the country to read. The crisis, so far as Spain was concerned, was thus
dispelled.

There remained the great question how would Bonaparte respond to
Monroe's offer? It was answered, in the way of such things, by events be-
yond the control of both men. Shortly before Monroe arrived in France,
Addington had been confronted by a major Parliamentary crisis. Reports
of bristling activity in the French-controlled shipyards of Holland were
setting all England astir with fear of invasion. Under questioning, the
French assured Addington that their new program of ship construction was
designed solely for the reinforcement of the army in Santo Domingo and
the transport of troops to Louisiana. The new vessels, they pointed out,
were of the ocean-going type, and included no flat-bottomed boats such as
would have been required for a cross-channel assault on England. The only
reason why the completed ships had not already sailed for the West Indies
was the extraordinary ferocity of the winter, which had sealed Holland's
harbors with ice. Addington himself was inclined to accept this explanation
as true and it wasbut he was totally unable to control the situation. The
initial spark of concern over invasion was deliberately fanned into a blaze
of fear by leading officials of the War Office and Admiralty, who had come
to the conclusion that with Bonaparte so deeply committed across the At-
lantic the opportunity to strike at France ought not to be missed. A Par-
liamentary resolution calling on the Prime Minister to take action was ac-
claimed on all sides, until Addington realized that he and his peace policy
were sliding to disaster. The issue was obvious: if he insisted on peace, he
would be forced to resign. His choice was to remain in office. To forestall
his enemies, overnight he became an advocate of preventive
drafted a message from the King to Parliament, urging immediat
to protect England from invasion.

News of the King's message came as a shock to Bonapart^ wi* pfrfepfly

[2IO] THE POUNDING SURF OF CRISIS l8o2-l8l2

understood what lay behind. Holding an audience at the Tuileries, he
publicly challenged the British ambassador, Lord Whitworth, "And so you
are determined to go to war!" When Whitworth formally denied any such
intention on England's part, the Consul bitterly attacked the British for
seeMng pretexts for war, and for refusing to give up Malta as promised.
"Woe to those who do not respect treaties! They shall answer for it to all

Europe!"

Now it was unmistakable to him that the Louisiana project had to be
liquidated, once and for all The unforseeable the fanaticism of Santo
Domingo's Negroes, the aedes aegypti mosquito, Godoy's closure of the
New Orleans deposit, and the icy winter of 1802-1803, among other chances
had forced his hand. In this crisis, his pledge to Spain that France "would
not alienate" Louisiana became, in his mind, a scrap of paper not worth
two thoughts. If the Americans would pay enough and France needed
money for the imminent war why not let them have their New Orleans?
Contemplating the prospect of armies and battlefields, his state of fury at
the perversity of circumstance gave way to calm determination. He would
renounce his transatlantic ambitions, he would turn instead on his enemies
in Europe, and destroy them. Instead of having to wage an overseas war
for Louisiana, he could use the colony to bind the United States to him in
good will forever. Not France, but England in the years ahead would be
regarded as America's enemy. As always, no sooner did he know what ne-
cessity required him to do, than he had a complete rationalization ready to
explain why he chose to do it.

Many of those around him who had shared his dream of reviving France's
ancient colonial glories could not give it up as readily as he. To brothers
Joseph and Lucien, who came to remonstrate with him as he lay in his bath,
he responded with curt admonitions to mind their own business and to
mate sure they understood, spbshed them with the bath water. On
Talleyrand, who opposed the sale, he turned a cold and fishy eye for after
all, It was the Foreign Minister who had seduced him into the Louisiana
adventure in the first place, April 11, 1803, two days before Monroe reached
Paris, was the crucial day. The First Consul sent for his Minister of Finance,
Barb&Marbois, and made the extraordinary statement which Marbois later
recorded in his History of Louisiana: "Irresolution and deliberation are no
longer tolerable. I renounce Louisiana. It is not only New Orleans that I
will sell, but the entire colony, without reservation. I know the value of
what I renounce . , . I renounce it with utmost regret. It would be foolish
obstinacy to try to hold it. I direct you to negotiate tMs afek . * .iDo not
wait even for Mr. Monroe's arrival; have an interview this veiy day with
Mr. Livingston . . ."

Within a few minutes, word of Bonaparte's decision qame to Talleyrand,

THE TRIGGERING OF WAR [ 211 ]

and he reacted characteristically. Sloughing off his own convictions as easily
as a snake sheds a skin, he adopted those of his master. Since Louisiana was
to be sold, he would restore his own prestige by taking the lead in the
matter. The ambitious Barb&Marbois had to be shunted aside. In such a
situation, minutes could be precious, and an urgent message went to Robert
Livingston requesting an immediate conference at the Foreign Ministry.
When the American entered Talleyrand's office, he was startled by a sharp
and instant question: what would the United States offer for New Orleans
and all Louisiana? Livingston, who was somewhat deaf, asked to have the
question repeated, while he caught his breath. It was necessary for him to
temporize his instructions applied only to New Orleans and the Floridas
but he recognized that an event of monumental importance was about
to unfold. He had worked hard to persuade France in the matter, and it
seemed to him unfair that Monroe, who had not yet arrived, should share
the credit He rushed back to his office, wrote a lengthy letter to Jefferson,
describing the new development, and sent it off by fast boat

15. "The Noblest Work . . ."

Two days later, Monroe, whose confidence in himself was always majestic,
brought to the negotiation the measure of reassurance which Livingston
needed. This was not the time, they agreed, to stick to the letter of their
instructions. Bonaparte was impatient. A week later, after concentrated
haggling, a figure was reached $15,000,000 for New Orleans and all of
Spain's former possessions west of the Mississippi and north of Mexico.
Three fourths of this amount was to be paid in the form of bonds bearing
6 per cent interest; for the remainder, the United States was to assume debts
owed to her citizens by France. It was a transaction for which neither the
President nor the Congress was prepared, but the two Americans unhesi-
tatingly took responsibility for it on themselves. <r We have lived long," said
Livingston, after signing the treaty of purchase, *T>ut this is the noblest
work of our lives/' Bonaparte, a little later, explained his decision to France:
'Henceforth, Louisiana will be associated with the independence of the
United States of America, We shall always keep friends there who . . . will
be devoted to our welfare . . . The United States owe their independence
to France; henceforth they will owe us their growth and their greatness."

For the first time since the XYZ affair, Talleyrand smiled at an American.
"You have made a fine bargain for yourselves, and I suppose you will
make the most of it." He was referring to a question from Livingston about
the extent of the territory involved; although the treaty of purchase did not
speak of the Floridas, Livingston wondered whether they had not been
included in the retrocession by Spain. And what of the area called Texas,
north of the Rio Grande? Talleyrand, who knew precisely wiat tibe

[ 212 ] THE POUNDING SURF OF CRISIS l8o2-l8l2

Spaniards had ceded to Napoleon, pretended ignorance. "I do not know
... I can give you no direction/' he said. Still seeking clarification,
Livingston and Monroe sent a message to Bonaparte, but without learning
anything more. It was the First Consul's hope that confusion over the
boundaries might yet embroil America with Spain, to his later advantage.
Barb&Marbois quotes him as saying, "If an obscurity did not exist, it would
perhaps be a good policy to put one there." This was shrewd; not only the
anti-Spanish but the anti-British war spirit of the next decade in America
would be fanned strongly by desire for the Floridas.

There still remained for Talleyrand a diplomatic chore to explain to
Eang Charles of Spain why the French Government had departed from its
pledged word not to resell Louisiana. What followed was in its way a bril-
liant piece of work. Spain, not France, had been responsible for the sale,
Talleyrand averred. If the deposit at New Orleans had not been closed, the
United States would not have threatened war against France and an al-
liance with England,, just as a new European crisis loomed. And thereafter,
Spain's reversal of policy, in reopening the deposit, had virtually conceded
America's permanent rights in New Orleans, and cut deeply into France's
sovereign powers there. The French Government had been left with no
alternative but to sell the entire colony. This was Talleyrand at his
Mephistophelian best, seldom truthful, but always plausible.

Events now moved rapidly to the denouement. Lord Whitworth pre-
sented Talleyrand with an ultimatum requiring the French to abandon
their naval preparations in Holland; it was rejected with contempt; on May
i6i 1805, a few days after extricating himself from the Louisiana trap,
Bonaparte declared war on England. Europe's most spectacular military
adventure was about to begin. Napoleon^ who had begun as a creature of
the Republic, would now emulate Caesar. As de Tocqueville remarked,
instead of liberty, Fraternity, and Equality, the French Revolution had
produced Infantry, Artillery, and Cavalry.

CHAPTER TWO

The Heady Wine of Empire

i. The Real-Politik of Thomas Jefferson

The diplomatic stage for the War of 1812 was now set, with all the actors
in the wings. No one then living could have foretraced the tortuous path
of historical circumstance about to open before the United States. At first,
England accepted the accomplished fact of the Louisiana Purchase without
serious misgiving^ In fact, she profited thereby, a fact which tended to
reconcile her to the transaction. No American bank had resources or credit
large enough to assume responsibility for the redemption of American
bonds deposited with Bonaparte as security for Louisiana. The suprana-
tional financial traditions of the time, which had come down from the days
of the Fuggers, enabled the United States to employ for the purpose a
leading banker of London, Alexander Baring. In this Baring had the bless-
ing of the Foreign Office; so that the British government facilitated pay-
ments which Bonaparte would soon use in a genuine attempt to mount an
invasion against England's shores.

The only serious protest against the transfer of Louisiana to American
hands came from Spain. Minister Irujo, speaking for his government,
indignantly pointed out to Secretary of State Madison that America had
placed herself in the position of a receiver of stolen goods. In selling
Louisiana against her pledged word, and without making good the promised
transfer to Spain of the Italian provinces,, France, said Irujo, had forfeited
title to Louisiana. More, Bonaparte had violated the French Constitution
by disposing of the colony without permission of the Chamber of Deputies
and the Senate of France. The United States, so Irujo alleged, had no
daim to Louisiana under any recognized body of international law. If the
territory were to be sold, Spain, not France^ had the only right to dispose
of it.

This was perfectly true, perfectly obvious; it was also perfectly meaning-
less. As usual, the President^ who loved to theorize, completely ignored
theory when confronted by crisis, and like any sensible politician dealt with
hard facts as they emerged. The question in his mind was not whether the
United States was morally justified in occupying Louisiana, but only when.
Impatiently he waited for word that the ships carrying Bonaparte's repre-
sentatives had eluded the British fleet and arrived at New Orleans, so tibdx
tie transfer from Spain to France and thereafter from France to Aiperica,

[214] THE POUNDING SURF OF CRISIS l8o2-l8l2

might be promptly carried through. Meanwhile, Spain's anguish left him
indifferent

With a cool ruthlessness that Bonaparte himself might have envied,
Jefferson set about to complete the collapse of the Spanish empire in North
America by adding West Florida to the United States. "We have some
claims/' he wrote to Senator Breckenridge of Kentucky, "to extend on the
sea-coast . . . eastwardly to the Rio Perdido, between Mobile and Pensa-
cola, the ancient boundary of Louisiana. These claims will be a subject of
negotiation with Spain; and if as soon as she' is at war we push them
strongly with the one hand, holding out a price with the other, we shall
certainly obtain the Floridas, and all in good time."

A little later, "some claims" became "our right." A letter to Madison
asserted that "our right" to West Florida was "substantial." Talk of pay-
ment ceased. James Monroe, then America's minister to Spain, was in-
structed to demand West Florida as "a sine qua non f and no price to be
given for it." The "right" to which the President referred rested essentially
on the fact that France had once owned West Florida as well as Louisiana.
But this, as Irajo retorted, did not mean that the retrocession of the one
automatically signified the retrocession of the other. At no point in the
transaction with France had Spain yielded her authority over the Floridas.
But by now the American public was convinced that West Florida was
properly part of the Louisiana bargain. Southern landowners were deter-
mined to waste no time in taking possession of the rich Gulf lands. Al-
though Jefferson in his heart recognized the dubious character of America's
daim, he gave his blessing to firebrands in Congress as they tried to force
tbe issue with Spain. Their leader was the bold young Virginia orator, John
Randolph. At his urging, Congress accepted a bill, the notorious Mobile
Act, which calmly annexed West Florida to the United States, and asserted
the right to establish laws for the territory. When Irujo heard of this invasion
of Spanish sovereignty* he refused at first to believe it. The news seemed
to him, as be wrote to Madison, simply a journalistic Hbd on the character
of the American Government Was it possible that the United States had
so far abandoned legality and respect for the rights of others? Jefferson's
signature on the bill, early in 1804, left no room for doubt Spain swiftly
retaliated. Orders went out from Madrid to Spanish warships to seize
American merchant vessels carrying English cargoes. Spanish troops raided
into the United States from West Florida, capturing a number of American
citizens. The Foreign Minister at Madrid passionately told an American
envoy, George Erving, "You may choose either peace or war , . . 1 advise
you to go to war now if you think that is best for you."

The President had been against the Federalists when they sought to rally
tie nation for an attack on New Orleans, but he was for $ B^p Balkans

THE HEADY WINE OF EMPUtE 215

as they prepared to take up arms against West Florida. With native caution,
however, he decided to wait until his new minister to France, General John
Armstrong, coold report on Bonaparte's attitude. "What," Armstrong
asked Talleyrand, "would be the course of this government [France] in
the event of a rupture between us and Spain?" When the blunt answer
came back, "We must take part with Spain," Jefferson quickly muffled the
drums. Spain's fighting capacity was one thing, France's another. American
policy underwent a sudden change. Jefferson's next annual message to
Congress piously assured the world that Spain had "misunderstood" the
Mobile Act; the United States, he insisted, was not contemplating aggres-
sion.

A new plan was taking shape in his mind to make a secret treaty with
England. In return for an American declaration of war against Spain-
which, for practical purposes, meant also against France England was to
be asked to assure American possession of West Florida. But at the very
moment when the proposal to London was being drafted, news came that
British warships had resumed seizures of American vessels trading with the
French West Indies. To tie the United States to England under these cir-
cumstances was unthinkable. The President took in sail again and tacked.
This time he proposed "that we should address ourselves to France . . .
and offer to her, or through her, a sum of money for ... the Floridas."
Instead of war with Spain, he was now advocating bribery of France.

Because it seemed almost as if he was obsessed with desire for the Floridas,
Jefferson was in his time accused of being a greedy imperialist, held back
from open war only by timidity. It has since become evident,, however,
that he was motivated less by the desire for new territory than by concern
for the nation's security and future peace. In his view, it was certain that if
America did not occupy the Gulf lands, sooner or later England or France
would wrest them from Spain, and America would then be compelled to
fight a great power; and his shifty maneuvers were specifically calculated
to avoid this danger. And there were other considerations. He was, of
course, an expansionist, but in more than the ordinary, territorial sense of
the word. By expanding America's boundaries* he felt, he was also expand-
ing the horizon of human freedom. The Declaration of Independence was
still his passion and his creed. He believed that the American system of
government was qualified to bring benefits to men everywhere that the
expulsion of the tyrannical Spanish government from the American main-
land would be a triumph for mankind as well as a national gain.

His goals were definite; it was only his methods that were confused. Try-
ing an experiment here, an experiment there, he put the American Govern-
ment in the anomalous position of having added West Florida to its
dominions by act of Congress, white carrying on a complex: international

[2l6] THE POUNDING SURF OF CRISIS l8o2-l8l2

intrigue aimed at persuading France to accept money for Spain's colony.
The entire problem finally reduced itself to a single point: how would
Bonaparte react if offered a few million dollars for the Floridas? He had
just crowned himself Emperor Napoleon I, he was preparing for war on a
titanic scale, and it was difficult to predict his response to the American
advances. Jefferson wrote Robert Livingston, who was still in Paris,, to urge
"cultivating the disposition of the French government to take our side of
the question. ' For this purpose, the President realized, he would have to
make it plain that his recent display of friendship for England had been
only a mask,

2. Jefferson as a Hamiltonian

Mingled with his diplomatic motives for challenging England was an-
other perhaps stronger the need to put the New England Federalists on
the defensive in the coming presidential election. By presenting England
once more to the American people as the enemy, he could seriously em-
barrass the pro-British Federalist opposition.

His anxiety to strike at the Federalists was the greater because they had
found a mortifying chink in his armor. There he was, the great advocate of
strict construction of the Constitution, and of states' rights. Yet, without
any sanction from the Constitution or states, or even from the Congress,
he had paid out millions in federal monies for a territory whose acquisition
would reshape the future of the American people. The Federalists did not
precisely reject the idea of the Louisiana Purchase, Rather, they exploited
it to reveal the President as a man whose avowed principles could not be
trusted as a political trickster, a shallow opportunist.

As the author of the Kentucky Resolutions of 1798, Jefferson had some
explaining to do to the country, as well as to himself. At first, he thought
he would have to ask Congress and the states "for an additional article to
the Constitution, approving and confirming an act which the nation had
not previously authorized." But between the lines of the letter in which he
made this suggestion there were almost audible sighs* The truth was that he
wanted desperately to avoid a constitutional debate just then. Bonaparte
was waiting impatiently for his money. Who knew when he might change
his mind, and sell Louisiana to another buyer; or, if he were to be beaten in
the new war, whether Ms successors would abide |>y his agreements? It was
not a time for argument and delay.

His efforts to rationalize his position for the? record led him into some
appalling lapses in logic which he himself preferred to call "metaphysical
subtleties." In a letter to a supporter, Senator Nicholas of Virginia, he
twisted and turned like a fox pursued by bounds. "Our pseqijliat security
is in the possession of a written constitution. Let us not jmafce it a bjank

THE HEADY WINE OF EMPIRE [ 2IJ ]

paper by construction . . . The grant of the treaty-making power [is not]
boundless. If it is, then we have no Constitution." Therefore he saw virtue,
he said, in asking the states to grant an enlargement of the federal powers
in the instance of Louisiana. On the other hand, he would really be very
pleased if Congress decided to do nothing of the kind. "If, however, our
friends shall think differently, certainly I shall acquiesce with satisfaction."
That is to say, he would "acquiesce with satisfaction" if his party chose to
make "blank paper" of the Constitution in what he believed to be a good
cause.

As usual when an old doctrine blocked the road to a new opportunity, it
was the doctrine that the President threw aside. To carry through the
Louisiana transaction, he had to make an extraordinary about-face to be-
come, for practical purposes, a Hamiltonian, an advocate of paternalism in
government. A letter which he wrote to his friend Senator Breckenridge
admitted as much. "It is the case of a guardian, investing the money of his
ward in purchasing an important adjacent territory; and saying to him when
of age, I did this for your good."

The fact was that Jefferson, knowing the sincerity of his democratic
convictions^ felt that he could in good conscience take liberties with the
Constitution; but he did not intend to see anyone else try it. In the end, he
fell back on the sense of history and innate mysticism which were the real
foundations of his statesmanship. In high politics, he knew, things seldom
turn out the way they are planned. Many a statesman, like Columbus, "sets
out for the golden Indies and winds up in Cuba." The world panorama
changes too rapidly for the human mind to maintain a grasp on the com-
plex whole. There are always some factors in the equation which the
planner has missedso that in a sense every governmental plan is obsoles-
cent from the moment it is applied. As with all great national leaders, feel-
ing was more important to Jefferson than plan. The conception of a loose
union of states federated under a central government with very limited
powers had seemed hopeful to him in the iy8os; he used it for partisan
purposes in the 17905; but in the iSoos he recognized its impracticability.
But this does not mean that he lost sight of his principles.

His essential principle of government, like Ben Franklin's, was trjat
its only valid test is human welfare. When the right of people to lif a, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness was concerned Jefferson never hes,i|ate<l It
was in support of this right tfiat he held firmly to his pacifism and to his
belief in representative government His clonaestic and fee^i sfcr&tegy ;#&<}
tactics were those of a cautions opportunist, bfut only a man of
conviction could have maintained his central pojicfes*

What had to be done would be ^one, The^jtute cotintcy cteei^ei #t
longiawaited news that in Decepibar jjicp Governor ,\yy Ot <

[ 2l8 ] THE POUNDING SURF OF CRISIS l8o2-l8l2

had assumed authority over Louisiana, and the Stars and Stripes had risen
over New Orleans. For a year afterward, Americans continued to drain
their whisky glasses to the man who had made their country an empire,
"the immortal Jefferson/' When Federalists assailed the President for pay-
ing out "a stack of silver dollars three miles high" for "an enormous
desert," they were answered by crushing arithmetic: America had bought a
million square miles (actually 828,000) at less than three cents an acre.
When Jefferson was accused of trampling on the Constitution, his critics
were reminded that no drop of American blood had been shed for the
acquisition of all Louisiana, and that a few years earlier Hamilton had been
prepared to go to war with Spain and France in order to seize New Orleans
alone. As Jefferson had guessed, his political tergiversations bothered the
people not at all. Like himself, they sensed that Louisiana was part of the
American destiny, and they did not much care how they got it

3. Misadventures of Anthony Merry

In England, everyone agreed that Henry Addington had to go, everyone
except Addington. For almost a year after his "victory without war" proved
to be illusory, he clung precariously to his pinnacle, while Canning,
Windham, and Grenville tugged at his legs. In an effort to prove himself a
war leader,, he donned a military uniform, but quickly took it off again
after Richard Brinsley Sheridan called him "a sheep in wolfs clothing" and
set England snickering. Possibly the last self-expressive act of his adminis-
tration, before he yielded the reins of government to Pitt, was the selection
of a new minister to the United States. The amiable young man who was
given the appointment, Anthony Merry, was by disposition and conviction
well-disposed to America, and eager to be an instrument of enduring peace
across the Atlantic. When Addington chose him in preference to more ex-
perienced and more aggressive candidates for the post, he indulged the
instinctive preference for conciliation which in all other respects had been
thwarted.

Late in 1803, Merry, accompanied by his wife, came to Washington with
his head full of glowing anticipations, derived from Thornton's reports, of
an Anglo-American affiance against Bonaparte. He was speedily disillu-
sioned. From the very first moment of his arrival, he was made to feel, if
not unwanted, at least inconsequential. When he was presented by Secre-
tary of State Madison to the President, he was startled to see Jefferson
appear in old clothes and moccasins* which made Merry think him at first
to be only some slovenly servant. At his first diplomatic dinner, he found
himself and Mrs. Merry seated below the Spanish minister and his wife a
breach of protocol which greatly mortified the British couple. Merry won-
dered whether the treatment accorded him was a calculated insult to

THE HEADY WINE OF EMPIRE [

England. A few days later, the question was answered. Secretary of State
Madison and his famous wife, Dolly, gave a dinner at which they went to
considerable lengths to ignore Mrs. Merry, This may not have been alto-
gether a matter of policy, for the lady was something less than a social
delight; Jefferson himself commented, in a letter to Monroe, that she was
an undesirable and pushing character who had "disturbed our harmony
extremely," and thereafter "must eat her soup at home."

Merry's bitterness grew; and it was to have painfully distorting effects on
Anglo-American diplomacy. ""I have now but too much reason to fear/* he
wrote to the Foreign Office, "what I did not at first suspect, that the marked
inattention toward me of the present administration of this country has
been a part of their unfriendly disposition toward his Majesty and toward
the nation which I have the honor to represent." He became even more
convinced of America's enmity when Madison held an official meeting
with him, regarding a treaty to establish a definite boundary between
Canada and the United States. A draft of the treaty had been signed by
Rufus King in London, and Merry regarded the matter as nearly settled.
He learned otherwise. The Senate, Madison informed him, had flatly
rejected the treaty on the ground that the boundaries which it sought to
establish in the West might conflict with those of the Louisiana Purchase.
In his next letter to London Merry wrote that he suspected the American
government of having "ideas of encroachment on his Majesty's just rights 7 '
in Canada.

Just before the year's end, Madison opened a diplomatic attack on
England from another direction, by officially informing Congress that im-
pressment of American seamen by British naval vessels had not ceased. In
1803^ there had been forty-three such impressments, and twelve of the men
seized had carried proof of American citizenship. Congress thereupon began
to debate the possibility of protecting American sailors by force, if necessary.
This worrisome news Merry sent on to London, but he had hardly done
so when he was given still graver matters to write about. The United States
had decided to challenge once more England's authority to set wartime
rules for American commerce.

Specifically, Madison urged that, since the commercial clauses of Ja/s
treaty had recently expired, a new treaty be negotiated, under which the
right of search-and-seizure would be sharply restricted, impressment discon-
tinued, and American ships allowed to trade freely between the West Indies
and France- Mary gave the Secretary no encouragement Thfat tt sug-
gestion would even be considered by his govempmt was
unlikely, he said; and in ^ letter to London be stated hi$ ; <obpvtotiGi|
America was establishing a diplomatic basis for war wifh EjQgfeii

To the Foreign Office^ beset n it was by the pares dtigpg frptn .

[22O] THE POUNDING SUM" OF CRISIS l8o2-l8l2

of war with France, the abrupt change in America's policy was extremely
disturbing. A special report prepared on Merry's dispatches viewed the
outlook with foreboding. It concluded, "Everything . . . now depends on
our firmness. If we yield an iota ... we are lost/'

4. Merry Conspires

In the conviction, deep-dyed by personal animosity, that war was inevita-
ble and imminent, Merry involved his country in two major conspiracies
designed to crack the American union and to leave the United States
helpless against British power. At that time, early in 1804, the Cabot coterie
was in a state of great agitation. In their eyes,, the Louisiana purchase was
a threat to the national future by which they meant their own political
influence. Jefferson's tremendous popularity was bad enough; but worse
were the implications of the policy which he had established for the rule
of Louisiana. It was easy to foresee that if he were not checked the vast
territory would presently spawn a number of agrarian states, which would
weight Congress heavily on the Republican side and reduce mercantile
New England and Federalism to political impotence.

Hie first effort of the right-wing Federalists, when they found they could
not prevent the Louisiana Purchase, had been to deny future statehood to
the new regions. Since the Constitution did not provide for the rule of
territories acquired by purchase, they held that Louisiana must be regarded
as a colony in the European sense. Congressional approval of such a policy
would have allowed Louisiana to be exploited by private interests outside
the framework of federal law. But under Jefferson's tutelage, Congress put
into effect a system of territorial government that gave power to governors
appointed by himself, and aimed at the conversion of the territory into
states section by section, as it became heavily populated.

Men like Cabot and Timothy Pickering saw only one hope of saving
Federalism- secession. If Jefferson was re-elected and they saw little hope
of defeating him let New England become a separate nation,, in alliance
with old England. Although Hamilton disagreed, Cabot, on February 14,
1804, wrote to Pickering that he expected such a move to be made "at
some period not very tfemote, n especially if Jefferson were to provoke war
with Great Britain. A month later, the plot had advanced so far that it
could no longer be kept secret. Gideon Edwards> one of Jefferson's
Connecticut supporters, told the President that "Our leading Federalists
are all royalist ... If they cannot effect a change in the Administration
they are resolved to divide the Union." Merry wrote to London of his hopes
that the New England states would *'go forward rapidly in the steps which
they have already commenced toward a separation frt>m the Southern p^rt
of the Union . . . Their plans and calculations respecting the event have

THE HEADY WINE OF EMPIRE [ 221 ]

been long seriously resolved. They think ... it will happen suddenly, yet
with quietness and the universal concurrence of the people . . . They
naturally look forward to Great Britain for support and assistance . . "
The intrigue took on larger dimensions when, in the summer of 1804,
the state elections made it certain that Jefferson would be overwhelmingly
re-elected, with George Clinton replacing Aaron Burr as Vice-President.
Burr, then seeking to succeed Clinton as Governor of New York, was de-
feated, in part through Hamilton's vigorous attacks on him. The setback
was a mortal blow to his ambition. For some time he had been in secret
correspondence with Pickering and other Federalist leaders with the pur-
pose of linking New York to New England in the secessionist conspiracy.
It was after his hopes in this respect were thwarted that he carried his rage
at Hamilton to the dueling ground, and killed him. Soon thereafter a mes-
sage of startling import came to Anthony Merry,, and he transmitted it to
the Foreign Office in these words: "I have just received an offer from
Mr. Burr, the actual Vice-President of the United States ... to lend his
assistance to his Majesty's government ... in endeavoring to effect a
separation of the western part of the United States * . ." Later he passed
along a request from Burr, who was trying to raise a private army in the
West, for the support of a British naval squadron at New Orleans and a
loan of half a million dollars. "He certainly possesses," wrote Merry, "all
the talents, energy, intrepidity and firmness which are required for such an
enterprise."

5. Pressures on Pitt

For the first time, the United States was actually engaging in power
politics under a leader of extraordinary suppleness^ tenacity, and patience.
But all that Merry could see or wanted London to see for America was the
probability of secession and disaster. There is no mention in his dispatches
of the chief facts of American life in the early iSoos the astonishing growth
of her population and her productivity. Yet these were the facts which ware
rapidly changing America's role in international affairs, especially vi&-&-vi$
England. A quarter of a century earlier, the population of Great Britain
(excluding Ireland) had been less than eight millions in an area of roughly
90,000 square miles; that of the colonies about three millions on an At-
lantic coastal strip of about 300,000 square miles. Driven by the pressures
of the industrial revolution, Great Britain's population had since psea by
25 per cent to ten million. But in the same period, America's
had more than doubled, while her continuous I^nd area had
and bef production of wheat^ com, poric,, and cattle had
gkmsly. Her merchant marine was ROW 'SepQnd only to EjjgMiid'% apd had

[222] THE POUNDING SURF OF CRISIS l8o2-l8l2

in fact become the largest factor in the carrying trade of the North At-
lantic. Her national psychology from being that of a colonial people was
rapidly becoming imperialist.

The implications of all this for England were clear enough for those who
chose to see. The increase in the economic importance of the United States
had sharply altered the world's balance of power; and the foresight of
Benjamin Franklin and Lord Shelburne in warning against British at-
tempts to restrict American growth had been vindicated. Those attempts
had merely produced estrangement without compensatory benefit to Eng-
land. Facing a hostile France, which numbered more than twice as many
inhabitants as themselves, and was self-sustaining as England was not, the
British people found that in alienating American friendship they had put
themselves in grave jeopardy. Their prosperity and perhaps their national
survival now demanded sustained trade with a young nation which for a
generation had bathed almost daily in resentment of British attitudes and
practices. Only the usefulness of the two nations to each other in the face
of the danger from France had thus far enabled the peace to hold in the
teeth of adverse chance. Many men on both sides of the water feared, with
reason, that sooner or later some unfortunate combination of circumstances
would touch off an Anglo-American war, unless England voluntarily modi-
fied the arbitrary rules under which she dominated the seas.

When in 1804 William Pitt resumed his old place at the head of the
British Government and shouldered the burdens of war with France, a
struggle over American policy was more than he could face. Middle-aged,
tired, and suffering from disorders which would soon kill him, he was only
a fraction of the man he had been. To rid himself of the problem, he
assigned the decision on America to the Foreign Office, as he had done in
the old days. But this time he could not fall back on a Grenville, who,
however haughty and stern, was an imaginative and capable diplomat. Dis-
approving of much that he saw in the new Pitt, and ambitious to lead the
nation in his own right, Grenville had refused to serve with him again.
The Prime Minister, under great pressure > allowed England's foreign affairs
to be entrusted to the mediocre Lord Harrowby, who was as aggressive as
Grenville but far less intelligent \

Confronted by the American question, Harrowby, who had neither
knowledge nor intuition of America^ fell back on Merry's reports. From
these he gathered that Pickering's or Burfs conspiracy would soon split the
United States, and that the Mobile Act would put her at war with Spain
and France over West Florida. The trend of events* it seemed to him,
made America highly vulnerable, Jefferson, in his desire for West Florida,
had turned against England; then let him pay the price for Ms error. Thefre

THE HEADY WINE OF EMFERE [ 22^ ]

would never be a better time, Harrowby thought, to challenge the United
States ori all issues in which her interests conflicted with England's. This
was no time for delicate diplomacy. The motto of the British Naval
Register,

The winds and seas are Britain's wide domain,
And not a sail, but by permission, spreads,

fully expressed Harrowby's policy. England was straggling for her life, and
America would either conform to her needs or be chastised. Although on
the surface Anglo-American relations in the spring of 1804 were compara-
tively calm, actually they stood on a point of crisis.

CHAPTER THREE

"War in Disguise"

i. The British Case

The impressment issue provided the first test of Anglo-American relations
under Pitt. Through James Monroe, who was in London, Secretary of State
Madison addressed a memorial to Harrowby on the subject, recapitulating
America's many and serious grievances. His main point was that the Ameri-
can flag protected all sailors on American ships, regardless of their national
origin. While he did not flatly deny England's right to reclaim deserters
from her navy, he demanded that she desist from her search-and-seizure
policy. Where the presence of British deserters on an American vessel was
suspected, the matter could be settled by "a certified list of the crew/' or
citizenship papers, or "such other evidence ... as would be satisfactory
in a court of judication."

Despite the strong tone of this note, both Madison and Monroe rec-
ognized that England had certain strongly felt complaints which would
have to be dealt with before the matter could be settled by treaty. American
citizenship papers meant little. British sailors who managed to reach Ameri-
can ports needed only an hour to find an American ship captain looking
for experienced hands, and a dollar or two would buy the deserter witnesses
who would swear that he had been in America for decades. Evidence to
the contrary was obligingly overlooked by the courts. One professional
witness in this trade, a woman, kept a man-sized cradle in her home, and
insisted on putting the citizen-to-be into it, in order to be able to swear
truthfully that she had known him "from the cradle." All this was common
knowledge, and the sea captains of England could hardly be blamed for
maintaining that a British, Scottish, or Irish voice was a better test of actual
citizenship than an official document issued by an American court. Albert
Gallatin admitted that of the four thousand new hands annually absorbed
by the American merchant marine* more than half were British-born, and
a great many of them deserters.

To avoid the irksome question of the authenticity of papers, the British
simply fell back on the ancient Roman doctrine, nemo potest exuere
patriam, which they^expressed as "Once an Englishman, always an Eng-
lishman." Under this ruling any sailor on an American vessel who was, had
been, or might conceivably be English became fair game. That individual
cases of injustice were frequent the British did not deny. Many a genuine

IN DISGUISE" [ 225 ]

American was handed away to the terrors of England's "floating hells" on
no more evidence than blue eyes or a florid complexion, and was thereafter
flogged into obedience to his Majesty's officers.

The essential fact was that the contrast between a British fo'castle,
British food, and the incessant cat-o'-nine-tails on the one hand,, and the
high wages and comparatively reasonable discipline of American vessels on
the other, had created a dangerous manpower shortage in England's navy.
"Dollars for shillings" was the seductive slogan of the Yankee shipowners.
Some British ships that touched American ports sailed away so short of
hands that they foundered because they were unable to lower sail rapidly
in a storm. During 1804, an entire squadron of His Majesty's Navy, which
had put into Norfolk harbor (as it was entitled to do under the Jay treaty)
was unable to sail because of desertions; and its officers were deeply morti-
fied when the erstwhile crewmen jeered at them in the streets. Lord Nelson,
according to Harrowby, averred that in the years prior to 1802, no fewer
than forty-two thousand sailors had illegally left His Majesty's service for
American ships.

England, engaged in a mortal war, simply could not afford to let matters
stand at this point. Not impressment was the root of the trouble, Harrowby
told Monroe, but American refusal to aid in returning deserters. Impress-
ment, in the Foreign Secretary's view, was simply a way of redressing a wrong
which threatened England's survival. Moreover, it was a time-honored
practice. For more than four hundred years England had been impressing
neutral sailors in wartime. What was legality in international affairs, if not
a prescriptive right established by long and undisputed usage? To ask Eng-
land to give up the right of impressment was to challenge her most precious
tradition, that of mastery of the seas.

Here was a conflict difficult to negotiate, but not necessarily beyond ne-
gotiation. It was thinkable that America might find ways to aid England
in checking desertions if the British in turn would establish impressment
rules that exempted Americans of genuine citizenship. Lord Harrowby,
however,, replied to Madison's overture in such a way as to rule out the
possibility of fruitful discussion. His manner toward Monroe was barely
short of a prolonged sneer. He harshly criticized the United States Senate
for "mutilating" treaties after they had been signed, and went out of Ms
way to convey his contempt for Madison's diplomacy, which he termed
"acrimonious." In effect he said that there was nothing to negotiate.

Monroe promptly reported to Madison his belief that British policy to-
ward America was about to change for the worse. "My most $upest advice
is to look to the possibility of such a change," he wrote. Shortly thereafter,
Harrowby put his official position into writing. Its Essence lay in two
sentences. "The pretension advanced by Mr. Macfeop that tlje

[226] THE POUNDING SURF OF CRISIS l8o2-l8l2

flag should protect every individual sailing under it on board a merchant
vessel is too extravagant to require any serious refutation. In the exercise
of the right [of impressment] . . * irregularities must undoubtedly fre-
quently occur; but the utmost solicitude has been uniformly manifested
by his Majesty's government to prevent them. . " The most that Harrowby
would concede was a meaningless promise to order British naval officers
"to observe the utmost lenity in visiting ships on the high seas, and to
refrain from impressments in the ports of the United States."

With this note, the impressment issue began to mushroom to its full
growth, poisoning the future relations of the two nations.

2. "Ban the Broken Voyage! 97

Pitt's central strategy, as before, was to keep the French continually pour-
ing their blood and wealth into continental wars, without expending
British lives, and while cutting off France's sea communications. Since the
French merchant flag had been almost driven from the seas by English
warships, trade between France and her transatlantic colonies had fallen
into American hands. To stifle that trade was part of England's grand war
plan. The problem was to take the necessary action without provoking
American reprisals damaging to British commerce and revenues.

It was an urgent problem, and for more than wartime reasons. In the
twelve years between 1790 and 1802, the number of American merchant
vessels in transatlantic commerce had tripled, rising to over 1000, represent-
ing nearly 250,000 tons. It was Albert Gallatin's estimate that after 1803
the average rate of increase in American shipping was 70,000 tons per year,
or 300 vessels. Meanwhile comparable British shipping had actually
declined. The Stars and Stripes had become familiar in every part of the
globe at the masthead of merchant vessels which were swifter, more
capacious, and more daringly handled than those built in British shipyards.
Restively, the mighty East India Company had watched the increase of
American shipping in its waters until over 70% of India's foreign trade was
carried in American bottoms. Was England to wage war against France and
Spain only to let neutral America usurp her pkce in commerce? To stunt
the growth of the American merchant marine, it seemed to many English-
men, was essential to their future prosperity.

The most disturbing feature of the situation, from England's standpoint,
was that her maritime laws were no longer effective in regulating American
trade with France. Although the Rule of 1756, which had once more been
put into effect, forbacle American ships from making direct voyages from
the French West Indies to France, there was nothing in the rule to pre-
vent a so-called broken voyage. Without contravening the letter of the rule,
an American ship could carry a West Indian cargo to an American port, un-

"WAR IN DISGUISE" f 227 ]

load it, and take on another cargo, of the same kind, which, if non-contra-
band, could safely be carried to France. Soon American shipowners reached
a point of confidence at which they did not even bother to unload the West
Indian cargo in a home port. Instead, the captain would be handed new
bills of lading, invoices, clearances, and passports purporting to show that
the cargo had been taken on in the United States; he would discharge any
members of the crew on whose tongues he could not rely; in their place,
he would hire new men without knowledge of the cargo's origin; and within
a few hours, he could set sail for a European port* comfortable in the
knowledge that no British cruiser had legitimate cause to seize his vessel.
The loss of time occasioned by the need to sail west before sailing east was
not a serious deterrent to this practice. In many instances, a single cargo of
West Indian sugar, sold at the high prices then prevailing on the continent,
brought the American shipowner enough profit to enable him to buy an-
other ship.

By 1804, the so-called doctrine of the broken voyage had become the
bugaboo of the British Admiralty. Like bees to honey, the Americans
were swarming into West Indian waters. Equally aggravating to the British
was the fact that many a French and Spanish vessel, unable to sail under
their own flags, hastily became "American" by means of taking on an Amer-
ican captain and crew equipped with proper certificates, and hoisting the
Stars and Stripes. Napoleon was happy to encourage this arrangement; and
in spite of England's command of the seas, the French felt no shortage of
imported commodities.

For the British West Indies, the capture of the European market by
French sugar transported in American vessels was a catastrophe. The Ameri-
can demand for British sugar was negligible. The islands were consequently
left with only one important customer England for their main product
and this at a time when they were producing the largest sugar crops in their
history. As the full magnitude of the disaster came home, officials and
planters hastily took ship for England, to lodge hot protests with Pitt's
government. Their cry was, "Ban the broken voyage!" But they were too
late. By the summer of 1804, London's warehouses were crammed with
unsalable sugar,, and further shipments from the West Indies had to be
sharply curtailed; while members of Parliament who had made fortunes
in the Islands screamed their pain.

3. The Privateering Interest Speaks

British manufacturers, whose exports were suffering from the decline of
buying power in the West Indies, promptly joined in the cmtcry agwst
the broken voyage. So did shipowners whose vessels had beep deprive^ of
profitable traffic. They reasoned that if tfee British colonies copl4 ot tal?;e

[ 228 ] THE POUNDING SURF OF CRISIS l8o2-l8l2

their goods, then war or no war, an effort had to be made to share in the
French West Indian trade which the Americans were monopolizing. For
this purpose, they urged Pitt, and he agreed, to establish a number of free
ports in England's Caribbean colonies, where British manufactured exports
could be exchanged for the sugar, molasses, and rum of the French Indies,
and for American wheat and lumber, in triangular trade.

Although from Pitt's standpoint the plan was a success, to the sugar
growers of Jamaica and the Bahamas the free ports were the last straws on
the sagging back of their economy. For now French crops had been put
into direct competition for the British market; the price of sugar collapsed
to the lowest level ever seen, and a wave of bankruptcies struck the islands.

At first, Pitt showed comparatively little interest in the abject plight of
the sugar planters, but there were sources nearer to him which he could not
ignore. One of the mighty components of political power in England was
the so-called privateering interest, which included the high command of the
Royal Navy. If the West Indians had their reasons for resenting American
evasions of the Rule of 1756, so did the braided admirals of England. The
broken voyage, legalizing as it did the transatlantic crossings of American
vessels, had cut deeply into their incomes. Where now were the scores of
merchant-prizes which once had been brought in by British men-of-war or
privateers, and which, when sold at auction, had brought generous rewards
to the fortunate commanders of the captor ships? Many a sea lord of Eng-
land had grown rich in the 17905 by hawking after American merchantmen,
or by taking shares in privateers; and after the Peace of Amiens foundered,
the Admiralty had naturally expected to renew the profitable pastime. And
the eagerness went far beyond the uniformed officers. Rich men in all walks
of life owned stock in privateering companies. England's greatest aristocrats
and the King himself had speculated with success in this congenial busi-
ness. To have the doctrine of the broken voyage stand between them and
their proper perquisites seemed an intolerable injustice. When in the
autumn of 1804 the Admiralty addressed Pitt in favor of strong measures
against American trade with France, it was thinking of much more than
wartime strategy.

Standing against the West Indian and privateering interests,, and for good
relations with the United States, was a strong group of moderates, including
William Grenville and Charles James Fox. Under their caustic criticism,
Pitt had to proceed carefully. To denounce the broken voyage out of hand
would have stirred up a political storm. But what government cannot do in
one way, it can generally do in another. Pitt's problem was solved for him
when the courts of England came to his aid.

Some months earlier, an American merchant vessel, the Essex, had been
taken into port by a British privateer. Its captain pleaded his rights under

"WAR IN DISGUISE" [ 229 ]

the doctrine of the broken voyage, and the case was brought before Ad-
miralty court. In July 1805 one of England's foremost jurists,, Sir William
Scott, pronounced judgment on the Essex. Although in a previous case he
had indicated that an American customhouse receipt for payment of
duties was sufficient proof that the voyage had actually been broken, now
he was of another mind. Customs receipts in themselves, he held, were
not after all adequate proof that the owner of the ship had unloaded the
West Indian cargo in an American port. The receipts generally in use
showed only that the American importer of the cargo from the West Indies
had posted bond to cover payment of duties at the port of entry. Such bonds
might very well be fraudulent in intent, mere devices to make it appear that
the ship had unloaded cargo. Unless the customs receipt showed that the
duties at unloading had been paid in cash, it could not be accepted as
evidence of a broken voyage. The Essex was accordingly confiscated.

Here was a legal cord with which to trip the Americans. With the Essex
precedent, the majority of American vessels in the transatlantic trade be-
came lawful prize. Long before the ominous news could reach the United
States, joyful British cruisers moved in on scores of American merchantmen
then heading for European ports, inspected their custom-house receipts, and
put prize crews aboard them.

England roared approval. But this bold stroke, fax from satisfying the
anti-American elements in England, merely whetted their appetites for
more. As Cobbett pointed out in the Political Register, Sir William Scott
had not actually ruled American commerce out of European waters. What,
after all, was the loss of a hundred wooden ships to America, whose ship-
yards could replace them in a few months? The Essex decision had merely
required neutral shipowners to carry a different form of custom-house
receipt. Presumably, if no more than this were done, Yankee ingenuity
would soon be able to devise fraudulent documents which met the new
requirements, and thereafter American ships would continue their trade
with France. The Rule of 1756, according to Cobbett, would no longer
serve England's need. What was wanted was a complete cessation of Ameri-
can commerce with France. If this meant war,, let it be so.

4. The Book That Shook England

The argument over American policy had thus far been confined largely
to the cabinet, courts, and Parliament. Aside from Cobbett, British journal-
ists and their readers paid little attention to the complicated problem of
the broken voyage. All at once, however, the issue became a subject of
heafed public discussion. The change was brought about largely by the
publication in London, in July 1805, of a pamphlet of over two hundred
p^ges, under the title of War in Disguise, or The Frauds of the Neutral

[230] THE POUNDING SURF OF CRISIS l8o2-l8l2

FZdgs. Seldom has the potency of the book as a factor in political history
been so clearly revealed as in this instance. The author, James Stephen,
was a lawyer, experienced in Admiralty work in the West Indies. He could
cite many examples of cases in which American vessels had evaded the
Rule of 1756 through the subterfuge of the broken voyage. More, he had
scandalous evidence that powerful British interests were winking at frauds
against England's interest. French ships sailing under neutral flags could,
he said, insure themselves with Lloyd's against seizure, and Lloyd's, for a
special fee^ would secretly agree "not to dispute the neutrality of the
property or avail themselves of any sentence pronouncing it to be hostile."

Stephen reminded his readers that the economic collapse of the British
West Indies touched their own pocketbooks. "Mortgages and other creditors
in the mother country are entitled to receive a large part of the annual
returns of a West Indian plantation." The blame for the situation he placed
squarely on American transgressions. Why should England hesitate to make
open war on American commerce, when the United States, by the use of
fraudulent papers, was waging disguised war on England? With fanatical
intensity, he urged that British navigation rules be changed to eliminate
the broken voyage. All movements of neutral ships between West Indian
and French ports should, he held, be regarded as continuous and hence
illegal voyages, regardless of the route taken. The effect of such a ruling,
should it be adopted by the British Government* would be to make most
of America's ocean shipping lawful prize for England's sea lords.

Stephen had facts, he wrote clearly, he hammered away at his single
theme, and his book caught on. In a few months three large editions had
been printed, and literate England buzzed with excited talk on the subject.
The Tory press made the book its bible of policy. Other pamphlets took
up the same battlecry. A leading sugar merchant, Charles Bosanquet, urged
England "to avail itself of the fortunate opportunity of going to war with
America of doing that now which, sooner or later, must be done." Popular
opinion, from being apathetic, began to sway heavily toward the side of
the Admiralty and the West Indian interests. In Parliament speakers quoted
from Stephen until the phrase "war in disguise" was as familiar as the words
"cold war" were to become in the next centiuy. Even in the United States
the book had a vogue among the apologists for England. Its impact on the
Congress was strong enough to cause James Madison tx> write a long critique
in reply, and have a copy put on the desk of each senator and representa-
tive. It was a tedious piece of work, which when aH was said, made a single
telling point that America must "be permitted to judge for itself tie law
of the sea. "No minister . . . nor prince . . . must dictate to the Parliament
of the United States."
Stephen's bhuit anti-American stand at first met somd oppositfeii m

"WAH IN IHSOTISE" [ 251 ]

land, especially from the textile industry, and Whig members of Parliament
questioned whether British sea power was great enough to master both
France and America. News of Nelson's great victory at Trafalgar, however,
convinced most Englishmen that the last serious challenge to British might
at sea had been removed. In the resulting surge of optimism, Pitt was urged
not only to cut off American trade with Europe^ but also to compel the
European neutrals, especially Denmark, to buy British sugar, for the sake
of the West Indies.

Pitt hesitated; why push all the remaining neutrals into war against Eng-
land at the same time? It seemed to him advisable to await the reaction of
the United States to the Essex decision and the subsequent ship seizures.
It was possible, as he told his Cabinet, that Jefferson might declare war, in
which event England could postpone action against the European neutrals
while chastising the Americans.

5. "This Is Very Embarrassing'

In that crucial summer of 1805, of all unfortunate times, Jefferson's
intelligence from England was at its most meager. Prior to the Essex deci-
sion, Monroe had left London on a mission to Spain,, and the President's
knowledge of events in England was confined to scanty clippings from the
British press, mailed from London by a legation clerk. His main concern
continued to be the obstinate attitude of Spain and France in the Florida
matter. He was so exasperated at the French and so far from having an
inkling of the new British policy that he again wrote Madison to raise the
possibility of an alliance with England, "to come into force whenever a
war shall take place- with Spain or France." A few days later he wrote again:
"I consider the cavalier conduct of Spain as evidence that France is to settle
with us for her ... and that if she can keep us insulated till peace, she
[France] means to enforce by arms her will . . , We should not permit
ourselves to be found off our guard and friendless." And yet again: "I think
it important that England should receive an overture as early as possible,
as it might prevent her from listening to terms of peace [with France]/'

This, however, was a short-lived notion, killed by a new move in Paris.
Early in September the President received an encouraging dispatch from
John Armstrong, saying that Talleyrand had suddenly taken a new tack in
the Florida matter, suggesting that the United States begin to negotiate
for the territory with Napoleon, ignoring Spain, "The more you refer tbe
decision to the Emperor," the French Foreign Minister had said, "the more
certain and the easier will be the settlement/' At this word, Jefferson im-
mediately pigeonholed the project of a British alliance. Instead, he asked
Congress for a secret fund, to be expended at his discretion, for the purchase
of West Florida from France.

[ 232 ] THE POUNDING SUBF OF CRISIS l8o2-l8l2

It was then that he was shaken by news of the Essex decision and its
aftermath. His mind was so concentrated on Florida that his first concern
was not how to retaliate against England, but the probable effect of the
British action on Napoleon: now that there was no chance of an Anglo-
American alliance, would France still consider the sale of the Floridas? He
quickly learned the answer. The Emperor had just sent a new minister to
the United States, the flamboyant General Louis-Marie Turreau; and
Turreau shrugged the Florida matter aside. France, he said, expected that
America, under this new provocation from England, would forego territorial
adventures and manfully stand up to her enemy. When the President
hesitated, the Frenchman was indignant at what seemed to him sheer
cowardice. Jefferson was all words and no action, he wrote to Talleyrand.
Sarcastically,, he quoted the President's words: "We have principles from
which we shall never depart; our people trade everywhere, and our
neutrality shall be respected everywhere ... On the other hand, we do not
want warand all this is very embarrassing."

In a talk with Madison, Turreau made another effort to promote war
between America and England. "I took occasion to express to Mr. Madi-
son/' he reported to Talleyrand, "my astonishment that the schemes of ag-
grandizement which the United States appeared to have, should be always
directed toward the south, while there were still in the north important
and convenient territories such as Canada, Nova Scotia,, etc. 'Doubtless!'
replied the secretary, *but the moment has not yet come. When the pear
is ripe it will fall of itself!' "

Turreau drew the inference: America was willing to fight weak Spain
for the Floridas, if France would not intervene; but she would not fight
mighty England for Canada. Let the Emperor therefore continue to support
Spain, and the Americans would not dare to strike in the Floridas or Texas.
At the same time, they could hardly now resume negotiations for a British
alliance. As Turreau saw it, the United States had been isokted; Jefferson
had worked himself into a tight diplomatic corner, threatened on one side
by England, on the other by France, and unable to come to terms with
either.

6. The President Js Affable

The winter of 1805 brought with it further provocation from England.
British frigates appeared off the American coast, so many as to suggest a
blockade, and began to stop and search every merchantman within gun
range, seizing many as being in violation of the Essex decision, American
merchants rushed to protest to the President; congjressmea bayed their
indignation; newspapers demanded redress. The Salem Register voiced the
prevailing sentiment when it said: "Never wfll n^uteak bp perfectly safe

"WAR IN DISGUISE" [ 233 ]

till free goods make free ships, or till England loses two or three great naval
battles." But how the United States was to win those battles the Register
did not say.

Although the President could not ignore the public clamor, he was deter-
mined not to yield to it. America was in no position to fight England
and an alliance with the British navy might yet turn out to be essential to
America's security. Accordingly, Jefferson decided to give the appearance of
resisting England, while actually preserving his freedom of maneuver* At
his request,, Congress passed a Non-Importation Act, barring English
goods from American ports; but he insisted on suspending operation of the
act for nine months, until he could observe the trend of events. The country,
to its astonishment, saw that not a sword, not even a whip, but an olive
branch was in the President's hand. Calling in the suspicious Anthony
Merry for a talk, he dazed the Englishman by his affability. Incredulously,
Merry wrote to London that Jefferson had said nothing about the ship
seizures, or the British cruisers outside of New York Harbor. On the con-
trary, he seemed to have in mind some form of co-operation with the British
Navy in the event of French landings in the Floridas.

The Floridas, always the Floridas, Members of Congress, like Merry,
found it hard to comprehend Jefferson's preoccupation with Spanish terri-
tory, with British cruisers seizing ships and impressing sailors a few miles
off shore. When he insisted on having two million dollars with which to
negotiate with Napoleon, some representatives, led by John Randolph,
protested the move as dishonorable; for had not Congress's earlier law al-
ready claimed the Floridas as part of the United States? A new outcry
against his "lack of principle" left the President unmoved. There was
nothing he enjoyed so much as an interesting combination on the diplo-
matic chessboard. With a wink to Pitt and a nod to Napoleon, he was
trying to establish a bargaining position with both sides.

The first sixty days of 1806 brought news which, as Jefferson's supporters
saw it, justified all his backing and filling. At Ulm and Austerlitz, the Third
Coalition had collapsed. Napoleon was master of Europe. The news had
broken Pitt's fragile health, and with "the Austerlitz look" on his gray face
he had declined to his death a few weeks thereafter. Grenville was the new
Prime Minister, supported by a comparatively liberal coalition of Whigs
and Tories. Napoleon's friend, Charles James Fox,, had become Foreign
Secretary. With this abrupt change, there opened up once more the prospect
of a peaceful settlement between England and America.

CHAPTER FOUR

Passive Resistance

i. "Highly for the Interest of Our Country . . ."

James Monroe, in 1806, was not a happy man. His diplomatic career in the
past two years had been a long series of rebuffs, from England, from France,
from Spain. He was hungry for a resounding success, not only because
America needed it,, but perhaps even more because he needed it. This was
no time for him to be overlooked or disregarded by his countrymen. An-
other presidential election was only two years away; Jefferson was unlikely
to run again, and Madison, although the President's heir-presumptive, was
far from being an inspiring figure, Monroe's own popularity in the South
and West was considerable. Although his was a rather flat and mediocre
mind, it was coupled with extraordinary energy and determination, and
average men were attracted to him far more than to the more intellectual
Madison. If he could come back to the United States bearing a triumph,
who could foresee how the popular vote would go in 1808? Even the Fed-
eralists would vote for the man who brought them peaceful trade with
England.

The only foundation on which this dream might materialize was a new
treaty with England and not another Jay's treaty, but one which gave due
recognition to America's increased maritime importance. Was such a
treaty possible? The advent of Fox to the Foreign Office raised Monroe's
hopes, and he wrote to Madison that the new minister "put me more at
my ease than . . any person in office since I have been in England."

A negotiation for a new treaty slowly took shape. Its difficulties were
multiplied for Monroe by instructions from Madison which suggested that
the Secretary of State was well aware of Monroe's presidential ambitions,,
and was anxious to eliminate a rival. The conditions imposed by Madison
for a treaty were such as England, even with the well-disposed Fox as ne-
gotiator, could never accept. Monroe was told that the British government
must give up the practice of impressment, restore American trade with the
British West Indies, and pay indemnity for $hip seizures subsequent to the
Essex decision. More, he was not to be allowed to conduct the negotiation
single-handed. The rising lawyer and statesman, William Pinkney of Mary-
land, was designated to join Monroe in London. Credit for a treaty, if there
were to be one, would be shared.

With the cards stacked against them, Monroe and Pinfcaey

PASSIVE RESISTANCE

plunged hopefully into the game. They felt that, in the final test, the
President would allow them fai more discretion than Madison's instructions
suggested. Unless a serviceable treaty could be made with England, America
was bound to suffer heavily. Already her ships were being denied access to
European ports. At Napoleon's orders, Prussia had closed her coast to
British imports, and England had retaliated by establishing a partial block-
ade of France. Maritime insurance rates were soaring, and many American
businessmen were refusing to risk shipments abroad until their neutral
rights at sea were clarified. New England was especially hard hit by
declining trade, and the federal Treasury was losing revenue. In these cir-
cumstances, Jefferson was bound to want a treaty: so the two envoys be-
lieved.

Their hopes were nearly, but not quite dashed when in early autumn
Fox suddenly died, and his place was taken by Lord Howick, capable
enough, but a harder man. Where Fox had given some encouragement on
the matter of impressment, Howick flatly insisted that it be excluded from
the treaty. He would consent to nothing more than a separate memoran-
dum, promising that the British Government would exercise great care not
to impress American citizens. As for Madison's other conditions, they were
even more flatly rejected. England refused to consider payment of indem-
nities for ship seizures; and in Howick's draft of the treaty, American trade
with the West Indies became almost wholly subject to England's will.

Monroe and Pinkney realized that if they signed such a treaty its chances
of ratification were slight. But what, they must have asked themselves, had
they to lose by signing? In terms of American politics, their status would be
improved if they put the onus of rejection on the President instead of taking
it on themselves. In this spirit, early in December they affixed their signa-
tures to the discouraging document. Years later Monroe explained that
under the circumstances "it seemed to me to be highly for the interest of
our country ... to get out of the general scrape on the best terms we
could . . . The treaty was an honorable and advantageous adjustment
with England."

2. A Nudge from Napoleon

Long before the Monroe-Pinkney treaty reached America, it was obsolete,
wrecked by a curious turn of events centering in Germany. Prior to Auster-
litz, in a pretty stroke of diplomacy, Napoleon had persuaded the Hohenzol-
lerns of Prussia to remain out of the coalition against him by giving them,
among oth'er benefits, the Electorate of Hanover, long a fief of the Britisjfa
crown, and which his troops had occupied. The loss weighed heavily cm
the minds of Whitehall, but they knew a trick ot two of their own. A strict
blockade of Hanover was imposed; but thereafter, an informal hint went

[236] THE POUNDING SUKF OF CRISIS l8o2-l8l2

to Napoleon from his old friend Fox to the effect that a general peace might
be possible if Hanover were restored to England. Interested, Napoleon
explored the possibility,, and secret notes on the subject were exchanged.
Fox's death knocked the props out from under this flimsy negotiation; the
Emperor lost hope that British diplomacy would compromise, and went on
to blazing victory under the sun of Austerlitz. But the consequences of the
abortive bid for peace had only begun to reveal themselves. Grenville, an
old hand at the great game, saw that he could gain a tactical advantage by
letting Prussia know what Napoleon had been up to. Events quickly veri-
fied his judgment. When reports of the secret negotiation for Hanover came
to Frederick William III of Prussia, he concluded that France intended to
take back her bribe, and dispatched an indignant protest to Paris. At first,
Napoleon took the matter rather lightly. Even word that Prussia was
conscripting troops for her strong army did not seriously disturb him. A
diplomatic warning to Berlin, he felt, would suffice to bring Frederick
William to his senses. To Talleyrand he wrote,, "Prussia must disarm in a
mood of ... reassurance touched by fear. That is the only language she
understands." Soon afterward, however, he learned that Grenville had
agreed to send a large sum of gold to Prussia on condition that she join in
the next assault on France. The Emperor waited no longer. In September
1806 he poised his armies in the Rhineland; early in October he overran
Germany; on October 12, he gave Frederick William a last chance to avoid
disaster; on October 13, he wrote to the Empress Josephine, "The poor
King of Prussia ... I am sony for himhe is a good fellow"; on October 15,
at Jena, as he himself put it, he "executed some remarkable maneuvers . . .
and brought off a great victory." A few days later,, his triumphant army was
in Berlin.

His military operations had not prevented him from closely following
events in Hanover and London. The British blockade was causing serious
discontent in northwest Germany, and reports of the progress of the Anglo-
American talks made disagreeable reading. The Emperor feared that Eng-
land, by assurances of trade, might yet be able to inveigle the United States
into some form of alliance, to the detriment of France's strategic position.
During his Berlin sojourn, he considered ways and means to get in the first
blow and damage Anglo-American relations beyond hope of a treaty, while
replying at the same time to the blockade. These liiaes of thought linked to
a larger conception then taking form in hi mind of an all-European
economic system which, by totally excluding Engkiad's ships apd mwdian-
dise, would bring the British to their knees. The device on which he finally
decided was the terse document known as the Berlin Decree^ promulgated
in November 1806, and which read: "The British Isles aije ^eclpedi to be

PASSIVE RESISTANCE [237]

in a state of blockade. All commerce or intercourse with the said Isles is
strictly forbidden ... All the manufactures of that country, or its colonies,
wherever found, are to be regarded as lawful prizes."

Although Napoleon could not enforce this "paper blockade" at sea, it
struck at the very roots of America's position as a neutral. The entire north
coast of Germany was by then under French control, as well as the Nether-
lands and Spain. Napoleon was saying to America and other neutrals that
if their ships dared to trade with England, and subsequently entered
continental ports between Seville and Hamburg^ they would be liable to
seizure.

For Grenville, the Berlin Decree was a shock, creating an ugly problem.
On the one hand, there was something to be said for the Monroe treaty.
Next to England, the United States had become the most important com-
mercial nation in the world. A large proportion of British exports to the
continent was then being carried by American vessels, and a treaty tying
the two nations closer together had obvious advantages for England. On
the other hand, it would not do to permit neutrals, including America, to
accept the Berlin Decree and bypass England for trade with France. Fail-
ure by England to retaliate in kind against the Berlin Decree, regardless of
the effect on neutrals, would be considered everywhere to be a sign of weak-
ness.

Preferring to be gored by the smaller horn of the dilemma, Grenville
promptly advised Monroe that while the new treaty would be signed, it
would not be ratified unless Jefferson repudiated the Berlin Decree. This
being said, the Prime Minister did not even wait for a reply from Washing-
ton. A few days later, the British Cabinet revived the old mechanism of
the Order in Council, and on the ground that Napoleon's action had given
England "an unquestionable right of retaliation/' announced that no
neutral vessel "shall be permitted to trade from one port to another" on
coasts in the possession of France and her allies. This was in January 1807.

Monroe was appalled. Under this ruling, the American merchant could
no longer put down part of his cargo at one place, part in another, or take
advantage of variations in price between different localities. Every cargo
brought to a single French-controlled port would require a separate trans-
atlantic crossing. Not many shippers could hope to profit in the face of
doubled transportation costs. As the Essex decision a year earlier had en-
abled Pitt to seize a great many neutral ships over a hundred so Gren-
vfile's Ordter in Council would trap additional scores of American vessels
then heading unawares for Europe. As Napoleon had foreseen, England, in
striking against Napoleon, had done a much greater injury to America and
had made a dead letter of the Monroe treaty.

[ 2j8 ] THE FOUNDING SOTF OF CRISIS l8o2-l8l2

3. The Press Is Confused

In February 1807 newspapers in New York and Boston were freely pre-
dicting that the Monroe-Pinkney treaty, upon its arrival, would be submitted
to the Senate and ratified. Even impressment was not regarded as an
insuperable obstacle. British seizures of American seamen would certainly
not become more numerous as the result of a treaty, and they might be
lessened; so why should this issue be allowed to block an agreement -on
other points? The optimism of the pro-British element rose further with the
first reports of the Berlin Decree. To many, an American rapprochement
with England seemed the only possible answer to Napoleon. The rumor
was widespread that Jefferson had finally turned his back on France, for the
Emperor's refusal to agree to the sale of West Florida had made the
President look a little foolish. He had got the Congress to grant millions
for the purchase; to please Napoleon he had gone so far as to suspend
American trade with the republic of Santo Domingo an action which had
no excuse in justice or economics, and which warped American policy out
of its independent pattern only to have the Florida negotiation wither on
the diplomatic vine. Washington noted that the President was displaying
marked coolness toward the Emperor's envoy, General Turreau, and for the
second time, was showering attentions on a British minister. This was the
easier for him, since the unfortunate Merry had been recalled and the man
who had replaced him, David Montague Erskine, was agreeable, friendly,
and liberal by conviction.

The arrival of the Monroe-Pinkney treaty brought matters to a head.
Erskine received his copy before the ship carrying the official script made
port; and he rushed hopefully with it to Madison's office. To his amazement,
the Secretary was cool and indifferent; and that same night Jefferson startled
the country by saying that, since the treaty failed to deal with impressment,
he would not call the Senate to consider it. The first howl of Federalist
protest had hardly been voiced, when another ship arrived with news of the
British Order in Council. Jefferson's position now appeared to be wholly
justified. If France had violated the rights of the United States, so had
England. There was BO more reason to make a treaty with one than with the
other.

Now confused journalists expected that the President would put the
suspended Non-Importation Act into effect* as a reprisal against England.
But here again they were wrong. He still hoped, Jefferson somewhat vagudy
told the country, for good relations with the British. And this in spite of the
fact that the relatively well-disposed Greuville-Howick ministry had fallen,
and been replaced by a group of Tories who were known to accept St&
phen's "war in disguise" as the basis of their American policy. TPhe ionainant

PASSIVE RESISTANCE [ 239 ]

man of the government was the wealthy lawyer Spencer Perceval, arch-
representative of the landed gentry, and a man whose mind was as narrow
as it was tough; while the proud, gifted, intractable George Canning
controlled foreign affairs.

Perceval's selection, one of the last acts of George III hefore his collapse
into permanent insanity, promised nothing but trouble for America. He
had hardly taken office when a leading Tory newspaper,, London's Morning
Post openly urged war with the United States, on the ground that "a war
of a very few months, without creating to us the expense of a single addi-
tional ship, would be sufficient to convince her of her folly by a necessary
chastisement of her insolence and audacity." This was duly reported to the
President by Monroe, with the comment that England's "shipowners, the
navy, the East and West India merchants and certain political characters
of great consideration in the State" were seeking a war with the United
States. "So powerful is this combination," Monroe added, that no conces-
sion was to be hoped for from them,, except "what may be extorted by
necessity."

4 "According to the Customs ... of Civilized Nations"
If there was any doubt as to the meaning for America of the change
in the British attitude, it was speedily dispelled. In March, 1807, officers of
British men-of-war at anchor in Chesapeake Bay were incensed by an
unparalleled wave of desertions among their crews, and even more by a
report that four of the deserters had enlisted on an American frigate,
Chesapeake, which was about to sail for the Mediterranean. A report went
northward to Halifax, Nova Scotia, where the admiral in command of Eng-
land's western fleets George Berkeley, had his command station. Within a
few weeks, the fifty-two gun frigate Leopard appeared off Norfolk, carrying
orders for all British warships in American waters: find the Chesapeake,
"show the captain of her this order * , . search his ship for the deserters . . .
according to the customs and usage of civilized nations."

With reasonable luck, the Chesapeake, carrying forty guns, and then be-
ing fitted out for a year's voyage, would have been far out in the Atlantic
before the Leopard arrived off Hampton Roads, but a month-long delay
in the navy yard had prevented her from hoisting sail. Later courts-martial
even brought out a suspicion that the incredible inefficiency of the navy
yard personnel may not have been entirely accidental. However this may
have been, on June 22, 1807, the ship was finally on its way, with a sunny
day and a fresh wind. Her crew numbered 375; and on board her was the
commodore of the squadron to which she was attached, Captain James
Barren. When he sat down to his midday meal, he noticed that the
Leopard was tacking in his wake, a mile away, but saw no reason for alarm.

[240] THE FOUNDING SURF OF CRISIS l8o2-l8l2

Later that afternoon, the British frigate came in close enough to hail Barron,
and her commander, Captain Humphreys, called that she had dispatches
for him. Barron noticed that the gun ports of the Leopard were open, but
attributed this to the heat of the day. To call his crew to stations, as navy
rales required under such circumstances, seemed absurd. When he gave
the order to heave to and accept a boarding party, he was prepared to
extend every courtesy to officers of the Leopard. To his astonishment, a
junior British officer handed him a note requesting him to deliver to the
Leopard deserters from British warships believed to be among his crew.
That there were Americans on board who had deserted from the British
Navy, Barron was aware; and also one deserter of British citizenship. There
was no precedent, however, for taking deserters from American men-of-war;
only merchant ships had been subjected to this indignity. Barron did not
expect a search to be made. Taking advantage of a technicality in the Brit-
ish note, he wrote in reply an equivocal denial that he had the men in
question with him. His hope was that the Leopard would not press the
matter,, but when the British party left he became uneasy and ordered the
Chesapeake' s gun crew to their stations. Everything now depended on the
time at his disposal. Although the Leopard carried the greater number of
guns, the Chesapeake* s were heavier, and in a state of equal readiness she
would have been nearly a match for the British frigate. But she was given
no chance to prepare. Humphreys called over to Barron that "you must be
aware of the necessity I am under," and Barron could see the Leopard's
crew take up battle stations at their ready guns. Trying to delay the action,
he shouted through his trumpet "I do not understand what you say," but
the only reply was a cannon ball across his bow. Then, courtesies dispensed
with, the Leopard fired her broadside of solid shot and grape point-blank
into the Chesapeake at a distance of less than two hundred feet, making a
shambles of her deck.

The Chesapeake 9 s crew worked desperately at their guns, but deficiencies
in training and equipment, and especially the lack of firing matches, put
them at a hopeless disadvantage. Two more broadsides were poured in on
them without a return of fire, killing three men, wounding eighteen, and
shattering the ship's masts. Barron, who kept his head in spite of a bad
wound, realized that he had to surrender or be sunk, and as" a reasonable
human being,, he struck his colors. It was at this moment, while the flag
was being hauled down, that Third Lieutenant Allen of the Chesapeake
found a place in history. Rushing to ship's galley, he picked up a live
coal in his bare hands, carried it to a loaded gun, aad managed to get off a
single shot which struck the Leopard's hull the only shot fired by the Amer-
icans in the entire battle.
When the British sent over a search party which seized three American

PASSIVE RESISTANCE [ 241 ]

deserters, and the one Englishman to whom they might legitimately have
laid claim, Barron had the presence of mind to try at once to establish the
diplomatic status of the assault. A note from him to the British captain
offered to surrender the Chesapeake as a prize of war. But Humphreys was
equally astute; in a formal reply he conveyed that there was no question of
war; he had merely carried out his instructions; he could not consider the
American frigate as his prize.

With rage in the heart of every man on board, the Chesapeake crept
back to Norfolk. Her arrival marked the beginning of an almost irresistible
call to the President from the people to take up arms for the nation's honor.
"Vengeance!" was the cry of the press. "Such a thirst for revenge," wrote
the Washington Federalist, had never been witnessed before. The South
and West saw scenes of violence as men organized militia forces for expected
action against England. New England was more cautious, but even in
Boston explosive mass meetings forced Federalist leaders to pledge co-op-
eration to Jefferson if war should come. Only the unshakable Essex Junto,
Cabot, Pickering, and their friends, dared to voice the opinion that Admiral
Berkeley's order to take deserters from the Chesapeake had been justified.

Heartened by tb@ nation's unusual unity, the President said with satisfac-
tion that the British had ^touched a chord which vibrates in every heart."
"Now then is the time to settle the old and the new." This sounded mili-
tant enough, but his official attitude, when he finally expressed it> was so
mild as to shock the country. In a cautious proclamation, he told the peo-
ple that 'lionorable reparation of the wrong that had been done" would be
demanded from England, and that British warships would be denied the
hospitality of American harbors. Monroe had been instructed to insist on
official disavowal of the Leopard's action, on the return of the Americans
taken from the Chesapeake, and on the recall and punishment of Admiral
Berkeley. Beyond these steps, another demand would be made on England
to abandon the policy of impressment.

These merely diplomatic gestures failed to satisfy many of Jefferson's own
followers. What was a mere proclamation in the face of Leopard's guns?
Surely anything less than ultimatum was weak and dishonorable. The rising
young Tennessee soldier and politician, Andrew Jackson,, who had viewed
with disgust the recent trial of Aaron Burr on charges of high treason, de-
nounced the Administration to a cheering crowd, with the satirical cry:
"Millions to persecute an American; not a cent to resist England!" Even
members of Jefferson's Cabinet prodded him toward war, notably Albert
Gallatin, and the Secretary of the Navy, Robert Smith. Wahout-iewfe
While seeming to move with the tide of belligerence* the President was
actually treading water in the opposite direction, It sow became clear that
no overt reprisals would be taken until a reply arrived from

[242] THE POUNDING SURF OF CRISIS l8o2-l8l2

5. A Hint from Copenhagen

In London, Monroe, with his customary optimism and energy, set about
to obtain the required "honorable reparation" from the Tory ministry. At
first he found the Secretary for Foreign Affairs, George Canning, surpris-
ingly reasonable, "If the British officers should prove to have been culpa-
ble," said Canning, "the most prompt and effectual reparation shall be
afforded to the government of the United States/' Admiral Berkeley would
be recalled from Halifax. A special envoy would be sent to America to
discuss the problem of reparation. In a second talk, however, the Foreign
Secretary's tone roughened. Although he was not at all convinced that the
fault of the unfortunate Chesapeake affair lay with the Leopard, the ques-
tion of reparation would be explored. But he could not comprehend why
Jefferson had linked the question of impressment to his demand for
reparation,, thus befogging the central issue. Monroe was equally baffled. It
did not occur to either of them that obfuscation may have been the Presi-
dent's purpose. A simple demand for reparation, he feared, would bring only
a haughty British rejection, and so war. He conveyed as much to David
Erskine, who eventually reported to Canning "that if the point of honor
was to be taken into consideration by itself, he [Jefferson] foresaw greater
difficulties in the way of an amicable adjustment of it." By introducing the
demand for a cessation of impressment, with all its ramifications, Jefferson
provided Canning with a reason to negotiate; and to gain time was his own
objective.

The President had no expectation that England would yield on the im-
pressment issue. That the forcible enlistment of American citizens into Eng-
land's navy was unjust was evident enough; but he was far too experienced
to expect a great power voluntarily to sacrifice its interests for the sake of an
abstract conception of justice. He realized, too, that a weak nation which
is always determined to fight for what it considers its just rights is likely to
be continuously at war, and soon rained- that without a supranational
authority to decide where coercion leaves off and justice begins, fair play
among the nations would always be a rarity. It made no difference that
England's desertion problem was not actually America's fault that it grew
fundamentally out of an inhuman tradition of naval discipline and pay. To
expect the British to change these conditions overnight, and especially in a
time of war crisis, would have been totally unrealistic. Although American
diplomacy could not afford to accept the principle of impressment, neither
could it intelligently insist that embattled England let the navy on which
she depended for survival go to rot. What Jefferson sought was not a sur-
render by England on impressment, but some indication of willingness to
adjust the controversy.

PASSIVE RESISTANCE [ 243 ]

But even this modest hope was quickly exploded. The first British reply
to his note of protest came not by way of the Foreign Office,, but through
the London newspapers of early September 1807. A report from the Ad-
miralty gave the world an example of what America might expect if she
irritated England too far. The city of Copenhagen had been shattered by
the British Navy. The reason? Simply the determination of England not to
let Napoleon dominate Danish trade. The Emperor, through the treaty of
Tilsit with Czar Alexander, had managed to close the ports of Russia to
English ships, so that the only significant coast left open for British trade
in northern Europe was the Danish peninsula. Napoleon's strategy now
demanded that Denmark be linked to his continental system. Not believ-
ing that England could forestall him, he relied upon an ultimatum to
compel the helpless Prince Regent of Denmark to give up his neutrality:
"Denmark must declare war upon her [England] or I will declare war on
Denmark/ 7 Just as the Prince seemed ready to yield, a mighty British
fleet appeared off Copenhagen, for the second time in six years. A con-
temptuous British diplomat sought out the Prince Regent in his palace and
carefully insulted him in order to eliminate any possibility of compromise,
troops and cannon were put ashore, and a bombardment of the helpless
city began by land and sea. Four days later, half of Copenhagen was a
smoking ruin,, with two thousand dead. The surrender of the Danish fleet
followed, and the Prince's resistance to British policy collapsed. Napoleon
had delayed too long. The episode, as Spencer Perceval happily told Par-
liament, was "regrettable" but "unavoidable."

The implications of the sudden and brutal assault on a neutral country
were not lost on Jefferson. America's navy and coastal batteries were no
more a match for England than Denmark's had been. After Copenhagen,
the word "war" opened up visions of the destruction of New York, Philadel-
phia, Washington. No city on the American seaboard would be safe if the
British navy should be given its way,

Jefferson remained quiescent, hoping that the thundercloud of the
Chesapeake affair would dissipate without lightning. And it did. The rage
in American hearts gradually spent itself in words, and was replaced by a
feeling of disgusted resignation. In retrospect, the insult to the Chesapeake,
like that of the XYZ affair, did not seem to justify a war,

6. A Matter of Honor

Europeans accustomed to monarchs quick to cover blots on their
'scutcheons with tie blood of their peoples ware incredulous at tfae.e&eefc-
turaing of Jefferson and his countrymen. America, they thought, uaasde a
sony spectacle of crass materialism and dishonorable meekness. General
Ttormtt wrote to Talleyrand that the United States was, w cbirapt$d bjr

[244] Tira POUNDING SXTRF OF CRISIS l8o2-l8l2

"sordid avarice'* that it would "endure every kind of humiliation/' Even
American newspapers formerly friendly to the President reproached him
for failure to restore the nation's honor. Jefferson remained unmoved. As a
student of history and of philosophy, he knew that the definition of honor
poses a delicate metaphysical problem. In statesmanship, especially, it is not
easy to decide where the honor of a nation,, for which a leader may
conceivably be justified in asking men to lay down their lives, begins, and
where the needs of a passing administration, for which few would die if they
knew what they were doing, leaves off. The President's own experience had
taught him that pious talk about the nation's honor is often only a shining
mask for a rusty partisan policy. As a party leader, he himself had urged
George Washington and Congress to reject Jay's Treaty for the sake of
honor, even at the price of war. It was not an episode of which he could
in retrospect be proud.

Struggling young America could not afford the luxury of sensitive pride;

and the President knew how rapidly wounded honor can heal with time.

During the XYZ affair, a single Frenchman's offensive behavior, magnified

by the Federalist press, had been taken by many Americans as challenging

their honor to the point of war. But ten years later most citizens could

hardly remember what the trouble had been about. With this precedent,

Jefferson felt secure in refusing to allow the popular sentiments of the day

to define honor for him. Not that he was cynical. He understood well that

honor, in terms of genuine self-respect, must be defended; that a sense of

civic disgrace makes life less satisfying, less worth living for everyone with a

feeling for his country. But he made a distinction between self-respect and

pride; and he did not believe that a nation was disgraced by testing every

possibility for the preservation of peace. If the war had been for national

survival, he would have felt no hesitation in calling on Americans to fight

and die, if necessary. Survival, however, was not in question. He did not

think himself justified in subjecting his young and democratic country to a

destructive war in order to preserve an old and essentially monarchical

concept of national honor. Screams for "revenge" from feckless journalists

eager to excite their readers struck him as childish. The affair of the

Chesapeake was only a sympton of an underlying international disorder

which most Americans did not even begin to comprehend. Without a more

compelling reason^ it was better, the President thought, to let the people

feel temporarily humiliated, than to submit them to death, mutilation, and

sorrow. Knowing as he did that the question of honor is essentially a moral

question, and that international diplomacy, underneath its pretenses, is a

thoroughly amoral business, he could only decide for peace. He preferred

to be accused of cowardice than to see the nation hurt in an avoidable war.

He did not have to prove his courage to himsejf at the people's expense. It

PASSIVE RESISTANCE [ 245 ]

was his opinion that in the long run most Americans would not think the
worse of him for trying again, and yet again,, to preserve peace.

Beyond the question of honor, the President believed that a weak Amer-
ica at peace in 1807 promised a strong America capable of victory against
any opponent in the future. "For twenty years to come/ 7 he wrote to Du
Pont de Nemours, "we should consider peace as the summum bonum of our
country. At the end of that time we shall be twenty millions in number
and forty in energy, when enountering the starved and rickety paupers and
dwarfs of English workshops." Time favored America; it was "the most
precious of all things to us."

7. The Canning Style

Most Americans in 1807 believed that George Canning was intent on
provoking and humiliating the United States. This was a misconception.
Canning, like James Stephen, genuinely believed that for more than a deo
ade Americans had been taking an unfair advantage of England's distress.
He was in consequence disposed to make no concessions to the former
colonials, and he took pleasure in exercising his literary style,, which was
dagger-sharp, at their expense. It was never easy for him to resist a brilliant
thrust, even when it was certain to make trouble. For all that, he was no
warmonger. Younger than most of the men around him he was then thirty-
seven Canning showed subtlety in restraining anti-Americans of the tough
Perceval-Sheffield-Cobbett school. The caustic phrases which he constantly
coined and which annoyed Americans "Republican and fool are synony-
mous" were a factor in his power to keep England's superpatriots in check.
Under the cover of his flashing verbal attack, the actual content of his
diplomacy was essentially peaceable. He acted as a brake on right-wing
Tories and showed himself unmistakably for peace when he retained the
soft-spoken David Erskine as his minister in Washington. Erskine was
known to share the opinions of his father, Lord Erskine, a noted Whig
leader who had made friendship with America the keystone of his policy.
Yet Canning prevented Perceval from pushing young Erskine aside for a
Tory fist-pounder. For all his sarcastic style^ the Foreign Secretary knew the
significance of tone in word-of-mouth diplomacy; and he had a genuine
belief in the power of competent diplomacy to avert war. Considering the
obstacles in his way, he succeeded remarkably well in keeping Anglo-
American relations in a fluid state, against all the pressures then tending
to crystallize them into a declaration of war.

The slightest move on his part to conciliate the Americans biGQgjbt a
storm on his head. His promise to Monroe that Admiral Berlcdey wosild be
recalled proved especially dangerous to him. The Tory press rose in its wiath^
and the Morning Port, thai the most irilmeetial Eewspap^r im the kiagdiom,

[246] THE POUNDING SURF OF CRISIS l8o2-l8l2

demanded that he flatly refuse reparation of any kind to the Americans,
and not suffer England's "proud sovereignty of the ocean to be mutilated by
any invasion of its just rights/' Under heavy attack, Canning had no
choice but to resign or concede something to Tory sentiment. While he
would not change his stand on the recall of Berkeley, the impressment issue
provided an opportunity to prove his patriotism^ and gave the British lion
a chance to roar. James Monroe was then about to return to the United
States, leaving William Pinkney in his place. Calling Monroe to the Foreign
Office, Canning asked him to inform lie President that impressment could
not be discussed in conjunction with the Chesapeake. Immediately there-
after he prepared a proclamation, which King George signed, and which
instructed naval officers to intensify the search for, and seizure of natural-
born British subjects serving on foreign merchant vessels. In case the
foreign ship refused to give up the men in question, the matter was to be
pursued through diplomatic channels. The British people took this order
to be in some sense a retroactive justification of Admiral Berkeley, and
Canning's popularity rose again. It was still further enhanced when he did
not oppose the views of the Admiralty on a suitable punishment for the
Admiral. Berkeley was simply assigned to another command which turned
out to be more important than the one he had left. Tory politicians, smack-
ing their thighs over this rebuff to Jefferson, joyfully predicted that still
stronger measures would soon be taken against the Americans, who were
obviously afraid to fight. Too many American ships were still trading with
Europe, in spite of the British blockade; others were actively supplying
the French West Indies; had not the time come to drive them altogether
from the seas?

8. Experiment in Peace-Diplomacy

Early in December 1807, before he knew of the new British proclamation
and Berkeley's promotion, Jefferson received word from William Pinkney
that Canning^ special envoy, George Rose, would soon arrive in America.
The chances of extracting a suitable agreement from Rose, the President
fell; would be greatly strengthened by an intimation of America's firmness
of purpose. The moment had come to make use of the Non-Importation
Act which Congress had passed and suspended at his request a year earlier.
At a signal from Jeffeison, on December 14, 1807, the act went into effect.
It would be a body blow, he thought, to British exporters of textiles, doth-
ing, leather, silk^ glassware, whisky, and many another product; and the
President hoped that American businessmen would be encouraged to set
up factories for such products, thus making the economy of tie United
States less dependent on England.

He had no sooner taken this step than news came of the Kiag's proclama-

PASSIVE RESISTANCE [ 247 ]

tion on impressment of sailors from neutral warships. There was no way
for him to know that the British move had been made largely for home
consumption, to save Canning's political skin. It seemed to him to call for
stern reprisal; but having already put the Non-Importation Act into effect,
he was in the position of a soldier who has used the last bullet in his belt.

At this moment, Monroe arrived, with clippings from British newspapers
predicting a new Order in Council by England to cut off American com-
merce with France and her colonies. Jefferson realized that such an order,
if it resulted in the seizure of more American shipping, would almost cer-
tainly compel the war which he desperately wished to avoid. Without delay,
he called a special meeting of his Cabinet, and put a question to them:
what step should be recommended to the Congress to serve both as
an answer to the impressment proclamation and as a safeguard for American
shipping? He himself had no doubt of the right move an embargo, which
would prohibit the export of any goods to a foreign country from the United
States, by land or by sea. He saw this action as yielding two major benefits.
It would inflict heavy punishment on England, whose textile mills had be-
come increasingly dependent on American cotton, and whose West Indian
colonies needed American foodstuffs and lumber. It would prevent the
seizure of America's merchant ships under the expected new Order in
Council. The central purpose of the measure, as Jefferson later wrote, was
"to avoid a war with England, unless forced by a situation more losing than
war itself . , . I did believe we could coerce her to justice by peaceable
means/'

There was, Jefferson pointed out to the Cabinet, an encouraging prece-
dent. When war had threatened with England in 1794,, Congress had im-
posed an embargo for thirty days; and the war had been averted. This time,
however, the President made no mention of a time limit, a fact which
greatly alarmed one member of his Cabinet, and the most acute, Albert
Gallatin. In a sharp and memorable letter to Jefferson, Gallatin expressed
serious doubts that the embargo would succeed, and said that he thought
a war would be better. "Government prohibitions do always more mischief
than had been calculated." It was hazardous, he warned, for a statesman
"to regulate the concerns of individuals, as if he could do it better than
themselves." The embargo he described as "a doubtful policy, and hastily
adopted." England would not treat America better because of it. Put it into
effect if you must, he conveyed, but only for a short time, and leave the way
open for a retraction.

But the President was by now all eagerness to try what he felt would be a
great experiment in peace-diplomacy. Rejecting Gallatin's advice, he urgecj
Congress to pass the required legislation without delay. "Our merchandise^
our vessels and our seamen are threatened on the high seas ... I deem it

[248] THE POUNDING SURF OF CRISIS l8o2-l8l2

my duty to recommend ... an immediate inhibition of the departure of
our vessels from the ports of the United States/' Congress, in secret session,
became the scene of violent debate, as mercantile interests in New England
and New York frantically fought the embargo, while the South and West,
as usual, strongly supported Jefferson. In the end, large majorities in both
houses constituted an extraordinary personal triumph for the President. He
was, in fact, at the apogee of his power. Even Federalist Senator John
Quincy Adams, of Massachusetts, son of the former President, voted for the
embargo, solely on the ground that the President wished it. Through sheer
force of personality, Jefferson was able to flatten American foreign policy
to the shape of peaceful coercion, as in the "West Florida matter he had
pressed it into an imperialistic mold.

Part of Jefferson's hold on the Congress at this critical moment stemmed
from the common feeling that he was unique among statesmen. WTien he
spoke of his "passion for peace," people realized,, he was not merely express-
ing a pious sentiment, to which most politicians gave lip service. With him
the preservation of peace was more than a vision of the Holy Grail; it was a
firm policy. He not only wanted peace, but he believed that he knew how
to get it. His idea of peace through embargo startled and impressed Ameri-
cans in his day much as Mahatma Gandhi's conception of passive resistance
through boycott touched India's imagination in the next century. With
both men, passivity went only so far as a rejection of physical violence as an
element of resistance. In economic and propagandistic terms, both were
highly aggressive in opposing the enemy, believing that shrewd application
of economic penalties could dampen England's warlike spirit faster than
gunfire.

CHAPTER FIVE

"Ografcme"

i. The President Is Praised

Spencer Perceval, England's Chancellor of the Exchequer and the voice of
right-wing Toryism, was a man of few ideas, but when he had one, he fought
for it. His great idea, as the year 1807 neared its end, was to make James
Stephen's "war in disguise" the basis of British policy toward America. In
the late autumn of 1807, before the embargo, he determined to compel the
Americans to submit once and for all to British power, if not through war,
then through militant diplomacy. After consulting with Stephen, and with
committees of British merchants and ship owners,, he decided on an Order
in Council remarkable for its impudent and shrugging rejection of the
former principles of British policy. Perceval proposed nothing less than a
scheme under which American ships could trade with Europe only as
licensed by the British government. This was the order of which Monroe
had heard vague rumors before he sailed for America, and which Jefferson
had anticipated in the embargo.

The coast of Europe, Perceval's order stated, was declared to be in a state
of blockade from Trieste to Copenhagen. No neutral ship might enter a
port within Napoleon's empire unless it had cleared from a British port,
and had received an official permit, after paying a fee of sixteen guineas
per ship. Any vessel attempting to violate the order would be regarded as
lawful prize for British warships and privateers.

Previous British orders had made som$ obeisance to tradition, as embod-
ied in the Rule of 1756, or in the ancient rights of wartime blockade.
Perceval, however,, dispensed with precedent. The message to America
implicit in his order was: fight, or yield us a share of your profits in trade
with the enemy. George Canning, reluctant to associate himself with so
obvious a piece of diplomatic blackmail, was careful to make it clear that
the order was not his work, but he did not oppose it, and in November 1807,
it was put into effect.

When news of the order reached Napoleon, who was then in Milan* far
from bang disturbed, he was pleased. For some months he had been
wrestling with the knotty problem of neutral shipping. It was common
knowledge that American ships were carrying British goods into European
ports in spite of his Berlin Decree, and jeopardizing his Continental System*
He had to be a litfle careful with the Americans, if be was wqafeuaBy to

[ 250 ] THE FOUNDING STOF OF CRISIS l8o2-~l8l2

bring them to his side against England; but now, under the guise of retalia-
tion for the new licensing order, he could bear down heavily and at will on
American shipping in trade with England.

His riposte to Perceval was a masterpiece of its kind, vigorous and cun-
ning. The Milan Decree began with expressions of horror at the licensing
order, as an unparalleled example of British tyranny on the seas. Then the
Emperor promptly went farther than even Perceval had thought to go. Any
neutral ship, he declared, which allowed itself to be searched by a British
vessel, or which paid duty in, visited, or intended to visit a British port was
thereafter lawful prize for the warships and harbor authorities of France
and her allies; and this decree would remain in effect until England
"returned to the principles of international law."

News of these two strangling edicts, one British and one French, reached
America early in 1808. Their first effect was to strengthen Jefferson's hold
on the country. Even those who doubted the wisdom of the embargo had
to admit that it had saved many American ships from seizure. In February,
American newspapers were giving the President credit for a kind of diplo-
matic clairvoyance. But now many expected him to rescind what they
assumed was a temporary measure. It was taken for granted that with the
embargo lifted, American ingenuity would soon find ways of evading British
and French rules, as it had always managed to do in the past. With a follow-
ing wind, a little luck, suitable papers, and enough money to bribe coastal
officials, Yankee ship captains had always shown themselves able to go any-
where. If the British wanted their sixteen guineas a ship, let them have it
If French and Spanish port authorities needed a little financial persuasion
to close their eyes when looking at an American ship's papers, what of it?
Profits were large enough to take care of such contingencies. Many confident
shipowners who had been growing rich on the soaring profits of neutral
trade quietly ignored the embargo in its early weeks; and a stream of vessels
sailed illegally from Boston and New York for England and France. Before
they arrived, their owners believed, the embargo would have been lifted.

2. The President Is Damned

A month passed, and another month, and still the embargo remained the
law of the land. It had become the fulcrum of the President's entire pro-
gram. He seemed to be absorbed in a dream of an America permanently,,
contentedly and peacefully isolated from the rest of the world. Away with
imports; away with shipping; "we should encourage manufactures of every-
thing of which we raise the raw material." As he expressed it, "surpluses of
revenue" were to be "appropriated to the improvement of roads, canals,
rivers, education, and other great foundations of prosperity and union/*
When Congress asked, "What surpluses?" the President had no answer. The
truth was, as Gallatin's reports showed, that the loss of revenue and cost of

"OGRABME"

enforcement of the embargo was forcing the government into debt. As
Jefferson later admitted, the embargo was more costly to the country than
war would have been. The financial-minded Gallatin repeatedly urged the
President to let the nation fight rather than be pauperized. To no avail.
Although Jefferson had always professed to consider a national debt a
terrible threat to the nation, and had often challenged Hamilton on this
ground, now the prospect of governmental borrowings left him indifferent

It was as if he had chosen to stake his entire career on the success of the
embargo. Far from rescinding it, he insisted that it be strengthened by a
succession of supplementary acts. Coasting and fishing vessels were put
under heavy bond to prevent them from taking cargoes to foreign ports.
No sea-going vessel was permitted to take on a cargo except in the presence
of a revenue officer. Any unusually large stocks of merchandise which might
conceivably be intended for foreign shipment were to be seized and held
until their owners gave bond that they would not be exported. The Presi-
dent alone was given power to license a ship to sail abroad. Lake, river,
and bay shipping were placed under close restriction. Commerce across the
Canadian border was so strictly interdicted as to make a New York congress-
man, Barent Gardenier, cry out to heaven against Jefferson's dictatorial
methods. "All our surplus produce will rot on our own handsl . * . God
knows what all this means! I cannot understand it ... Darkness and mystery
overshadow this House and the whole nation. We know nothing; we are
permitted to know nothing. We sit here as mere automata . . ." If this was
the way to peace, Gardenier and many another felt> then let there be warl
But the President kept urging the country "to give the present experiment
so fair a trial that on future occasions our legislators may know how far they
may count on it as an engine for national purposes."

As the year 1808 unfolded, the concern of the people gave way to anger,
and anger to rage. For the President to experiment was all very well, but how
much did he expect the people to endure before he was convinced of the
result? By April, Jefferson's popularity was dwindling fast. Up and down
the Atlantic coast, the embargo struck like the hand of doom. Hundreds of
stark-masted and barnacled ships, their timbers rotting, their crews dispersed,
cluttered once busy harbors. A New York cartoonist caught the national
fancy when he reversed "embargo" to "Ograb-me," and depicted it as a
huge snapping turtle, biting savagely at the backside of the American ship-
owner. John Lambert, a British traveler and writer of the period, wrote
vividly of the effects of the embargo. "When I arrived in New York in
November [1807] the port was filled with sHpping and the wharves wore
crowded with commodities of every descriptioo . . , The coffee-faouse slip
and the corners of WaU and Pearl streets were jammed 4 . . But OH my
return . . . the following April, what a contrast . , . 1 The poit was indeed

THE FOUNDING SURF OF CRISIS l8o2-l8l2

full of shipping, but they were dismantled and laid up ... The streets near
the waterside were almost deserted,, the grass had begun to grow on the
wharves ... So desolating were the effects of the embargo which in the
short space of five months had deprived the first commercial city in the
states of all its life. . . ; caused above one hundred and forty-five bankrupt-
cies; and completely annihilated its foreign commerce."

Southern ports were no better off. Sailors out of work in Baltimore be-
came so numerous and desperate that city authorities had to double the
police force to put down riots. In Charlestown, hundreds of deserters from
the British Navy decided that they preferred the cat-o'-nine-tails to starva-
tion. Lambert entered in his notes the fact that "upwards of one thou-
sand" sailors in that city, "destitute of lodging and food/' had begun to
riot 'The English consul advertising that British seamen might have a free
passage home in the British ships that were going to Europe, upwards of
four hundred availed themselves of the offer, and sailed for England." In
Connecticut a leading Hartford paper, the Courant, quoted a conversation
overheard in the streets between two sailors, heading for Halifax,, "for there's
BO standing this damhargo any longer." The British press took delight in
reproducing such reports, and mockingly praised Jefferson for at last having
found a means better than impressment for ending desertions from Eng-
land's navy.

3. New England Resists

The South was in grave trouble. Cotton was allowed to rot in the fields for
want of warehouse space in the ports. In Virginia, tobacco was given away
for a cent a pound, for nothing. But slaves had to be fed and clothed,
plantations maintained. The landed gentry of Virginia were shattered by
the sudden cessation of income. Jefferson's own fortune, centered on
tobacco lands, was irretrievably lost during this period. Nevertheless, since
it was the great Jefferson who wished the embargo* open opposition to it in
the South and West was surprisingly mild. It was in New England that
resentment found full expression. Boston newspapers told readers day after
day that Jefferson was "cutting the nation's throat to cure the nosebleed."
Madison was blamed with the President, and so was Gallatin, whose op-
position to the measure was not generally known. The government was
being ran, snarled a Boston wit, "by two Virginians and a Frenchman."
Another said that Virginia had declared war on Massachusetts. From New
Hampshire came a bitter little song:

Our ships all in motion once whitened the ocean;
They sailed and returned with a cargo*
Now doomed to decay they are fatten a prey
To Jefferson, worms and EMBARGO.

"OGRABME" [ 253 ]

Wealthy Boston merchants and bankers quietly began to transfer their
specie to Montreal for protection against worse to come. Soon a shortage
of currency, as well as of manufactured goods, began to drive prices up-
ward, aggravating the pangs of unemployment. Depression spread inland
from the coast like a plague. Jefferson's hope that American entrepreneurs
would quickly fill the gap left by the cessation of British imports quickly
foundered when banks declined to lend money for such dubious ventures.
Although in Connecticut some vigorous spirits* taking advantage of high
prices for woven textiles and the glut of raw cotton in the South, hastily
erected small spinning and weaving mills with American machinery, this
and other domestic manufactures were regarded at the time as meager com-
pensation for the suffering caused by the embargo.

Vermont went to the length of open defiance of the President. A vast
smuggling trade was carried on across Lake Champlain with enormous rafts,
guarded by armed riflemen, carrying New England produce daily to the
Canadian border. From there it was taken to ports in the St. Lawrence for
shipment to England. Revenue officers were helpless to stop the illicit trade.
One raft built by the smugglers to carry Vermont's export surplus was said to
be over half a mile in length, and to have at its center a bulletproof fort
defended by several hundred men. When a company of militia tried to
capture it, the soldiers were beaten back with loss of life. Upstate New York
soon joined in the profitable game, which made profiting Canadian mer-
chants and British shipowners chortle at the idiocy of the American govern-
ment.

4* "Punqua Wmgcfcong"

The aggravation of merchants was increased by rumors of a shady deal
between the Administration and one of its wealthiest supporters, John
Jacob Astor of New York. The noted fur trader, who was a close personal
friend of Gallatin, had benefited from a curious exception in the rules of
the embargo and the Non-Importation Act. The purchase of furs from
Canada was not at first kterdicted. On the contrary, the Governor of
Canada, Sir Jama Craig, was permitted to send a mission to Washington
to negotiate for the delivery of furs to Astofs company after the embargo
went into effect. The fact was that Aster's position entitled him to some
special consideration. He had built up a thriving trade with China furs,
gunpowder, and cannon in exchange for tea and silk and he was under-
standably reluctant to see it ruined by a law which was, after all, intended
only to infttre the European belligerents. The elaborate plot which followed
did credit to Ms imagination. Early in 1808 there appeared in New York a
handsomely dr$$sed Chinese mandarin^ with the mnsical name of Punqua
and witii graft funds at his disposal Speaking through to inter-

[254] TSE POUNDING SURF OF CRISIS l8o2-l8l2

preter, and showing high diplomatic credentials in Chinese, he asked
authorities for permission to engage a vessel to take him back to China; and
he proposed to carry with him merchandise which had been shipped to
him "prior to December 22, 1807." Suitable representations were made in
Washington, and Jefferson, Madison, and Gallatin all agreed that the
mandarin should be allowed to take out of the country merchandise or
specie to the value of $45,000. Philadelphia shippers got wind of the affair,
and protested to Gallatin that the so-called Punqua Wingchong was an im-
poster, a wandering Chinese whom Astor had picked up in the streets, and
who had been coached to play a part. Gallatin observed propriety by in-
forming the President of the protest, but in the upshot the mandarin was
permitted to sail under diplomatic immunity on Astor's ship Beaver which
the next year returned with a profit of $200,000 to show for the voyage.

Enlarged by gossip, the story of Punqua Wingchong became a damaging
piece of anti-Jefferson propaganda. The Administration finally stopped
Aster's fur trade with Canada, but not before many had come to believe
that Jefferson was making political capital out of the nation's distress. It
was true that his measures to enforce the embargo struck hardest in the
region where his foes were strongest^ Federalist New England. He instructed
Governor Sullivan of Massachusetts to cut down imports of grain into the
state "that we may not unnecessarily administer facilities to the evasion of
the embargo laws." Nantucket and Cape Cod were patrolled by gunboats
at the President's express order, and Secretary of the Navy Robert Smith
was told that enforcement of the embargo was "not to be measured by
money/' When Gallatin expressed anxiety over the shrinking revenues of
the Treasury, and spoke of needed enforcement acts as "arbitrary powers
. . . dangerous and odious/' the President replied sharply, ^this law ought
to be enforced at any expense which may not exceed aw appropriations"
"I do not wish a single citizen to be deprived of a meal of bread, but I set
down the exercise of commerce merely for profit as nothing when it carries
with it the danger of defeating the embargo." "If ... a continuance of the
embargo is preferred to war, which sentiment is universal heie," he wrote in
August 1808, "Congress must legalize aU means wMch may be necessary to
obtain its end"

That end, as Jefferson saw it, was the collapse of the British economy, and
a withdrawal of the Orders in CounciL The hollowiiess of this expectation
was soon made dear to- him,

5. Engfand Jeers

It was Jefferson's belief that England could not much longa stand
strain of simultaneous cessation of manufactured exports to America
of raw material imports from America. He estimate*! that ["between -

"OGRABME" [ 255 ]

Icon's Continental System and the embargo, England would have lost more
than 50 per cent of her prewar market; and that she could not adequately
feed her population without American grain. On these cheerful assumptions,
Congress in the spring of 1808 passed a law authorizing him to suspend or
modify the embargo if either England or France made reasonable adjust-
ments in their measures affecting neutral commerce. Immediately he wrote
to William Pinkney in London, instructing him to approach Canning with
a proposal that the embargo and the Orders in Council be simultaneously
rescinded.

Loyal to Jefferson as he was, Pinkney was deeply disturbed when this
letter came to him, for he knew, as the President did not, that England was
not to be "peacefully coerced." Jefferson's calculation had gone wrong on
two counts. One was the unforeseen bumper harvests in England in 1807
and 1808, which had greatly eased the wheat shortage. The other was the
unexpected laxity of Napoleon's vaunted Continental System* which had
not prevented a flood of British manufactures from entering Europe. Al-
though England's manufactured exports to America and the West Indies,
which had run about $40,000,000 in 1806, fell away, her total exports in
each of the years 1807-8 stood at nearly $200,000,000, so that the loss could
be sustained. Moreover, there were compensations. Her shipping trade
experienced a revival, and she recovered thousands of her seamen. Beyond
this, her economy was being strongly buoyed by a huge increase in American
smuggling. In spite of all that Gallatin's enforcement officers could do,
British manufactures continued to pour over the Canadian border and
American ships continued to trade with the West Indies. This process
Spencer Perceval had deliberately encouraged by another Order in Council,
which virtually promised immunity from seizure to ships which would
smuggle wanted American raw materials. Some thought that the Anglo-
American smuggling trade in 1808 approximated as much as one half of the
legal trade two years earlier.

Such suffering as the embargo had inflicted on the British, Pinkney knew,
had tended to inflame her spirit of determination rather than to break it.
When Englishmen found the price of wheat nearly doubled, in spite of
good harvests,, they cursed Jefferson and his money-grubbing Yankees.
When textile mills ia the Midlands closed for lack of the American export
market; when five thousand worker families were pauperized and some
starved to death, it was Jefferson who was blamed, and not England's Poor
Laws, Riots of tmemploy ed men in Yorkshire and of famiae-omed Negroes
in Jamaica ware erf America's making. The invective heaped oa Jefferson

1 the 'British pres$ was equal to aaytfhiag the Federalists h#d ever perpe-
" His name was hissed ia public places. Bfe was assailed as a coward

[256] THE POUNDING SURF OF CRISIS l8o2-l8l2

and despot A pamphlet hinting that he ought to be assassinated was widely
distributed.

From Pinkne/s standpoint, the time was especially unfortunate for talk
of compromise, for England was just then drunk with the dream of final
victory over Napoleon. The myth of French invincibility on land had at last
been exploded. In Spain, British and Spanish troops under General
Wellesley had defeated a French army commanded by General Junot
British statesmen were predicting the imminent disintegration of Napo-
leon's empire. Given the temper of the moment, Jefferson's instructions to
negotiate pkced Pinkney in a highly disagreeable position. John Jay had
been little worse off in 1782, when he was told to offer the Mississippi to
Spain in exchange for a loan. An insulting rebuff was inevitable.

But he had no choice. A note embodying Jefferson's suggestion went to
Canning, and presently the reply came back. England, said the Foreign
Secretary, would make no move which could even mistakenly be construed
into concession. His Majesty, however, in the kindness of his heart would
be glad to see the embargo removed, since it was obviously "a measure of
inconvenient restriction upon the American people."

Against this satirical stab there was little Pinkney could do except reply
with dignity, and he did, at the same time urging Jefferson to save America's
face by keeping the embargo in force.

6. The Good Neighbor Policy of Napoleon I

If matters went badly for Jefferson in London,, they went worse in Paris.
Napoleon was in trouble, and at such times there were no limits to his
audacity. Months before Junof s defeat in Spain, an enemy stronger than
General Wellesley had cast a shadow over Paris money-lack. France was
nearly bankrupt. One reason was that through Italy, Holland, and the Ger-
man ports the continent's wealth was being drained to pay for a flood of
British goods that the Emperor had not been able to check. He was caught
in a circle of frustration. The more money that went from Europe to Eng-
land, the less there was to be extracted from Europe to pay for Napoleon's
armies, which were needed to keep Europe in subjection so that British
goods could not enter Europe*

Controls in European ports were breaking down. Although members of
his family, then ensconced on various European thrones, shivered at the
bitter little notes that he wrote them on the subject, they appeared helpless
to exert the necessary measures. His agonts reported large stocks of British
goods here, there, everywhere. Prince Eugene Beauhamais, Viceroy of Italy f
was told "English merchandise is crossing Italy . . . This must cease . .
Arrange to have all English goods confiscated ... throughout my Kingdom
of Italy . . . War without respite on British mefchaiidisd it fe the only

"OGRABME" [ 257 ]

avenue to peace." Still sharper was the rebuke to brother Louis, King of
Holland. "At the last Rotterdam fair, all the shops were overflowing with
British goods. None of it was seized. I warn you that unless English mer-
chandise is prohibited and seized, especially close to my frontiers, I shall
send troops . . ." But the impersonal economic forces at work in Europe
were too strong even for Napoleon. Europe needed more manufactured
goods than France and her satellites could supply; England had those goods;
and the distance between them was short. The Continental System grew
steadily weaker from month to month,, until the Emperor found himself in
urgent need of new expedients.

Reports from all over western Europe told him that there were an extraor-
dinary number of American ships then in ports under his control ships
which had evaded both the embargo and the British fleet to bring supplies
to France. To seize these ships and their cargoes without payment was an
immense temptation, especially since France's own shipbuilding program
was badly handicapped by lack of funds. He certainly did not want to drive
the Americans to the point of an open break with France, yet should he
permit diplomatic niceties to deprive him of so ripe a plum? All that stood
in the way of action was lack of a suitable pretext, and this his ingenuity
quickly supplied. From Bayonne, in the southwest corner of France, came
a decree which made professional European diplomats smile ironically. All
American vessels in Spain, Italy, France, and the German ports were to be
confiscated and French privateers were authorized to bring in others,
whether or not they stood in violation of earlier French decrees. The reason?
Nothing less than the Emperor's friendship for the United States. Since the
embargo had prohibited sailings from American ports, such vessels must be
either British ships in disguise > or had "denationalized" themselves by pay-
ing license money to England. To rid America of these troublemakers was
the least that a friendly power could do.

To this bland hypocrisy, it was difficult to reply. John Armstrong's
vehement protest was politely rejected. Two hundred and thirty ships, with
an estimated value of ten million dollars, were lost to America. A little later,
Napoleon expressed himself seriously on the subject to Robert Livingston,
who approached him at the President's request "England has made your
ships tributary to her" (through Perceval's licensing order) . "This I will not
endure. Tell the President from me, that if he can make a treaty with Eng-
land preserving his maritime rights, it will be agreeable to me; but that I
will make war upon the universe^ should it support her [England's] unjust
pretensions."

Jefferson bad not yet heard of this action when he sent John Annstrong
instmctiona similar to those issued to Rntoey to ask France to end her
against neabal shipping, in vetn&i fox the repeal of the embargo.

[258] THE POUNDING SURF OF CRISIS l8o2-~l8l2

Napoleon, serenely contemplating the handsome returns from the Bayonne
Decree, was content to be gently sardonic. Why should he wish to have the
embargo lifted? Its adverse effects on France were small, and his West
Indian colonies were being supplied by smuggled goods. He saw the em-
bargo as "a generous decision" on the part of the United States "to renounce
all commerce rather than acknowledge the domination of the tyrant of the
sea/' To the extent that the embargo injured England, it was an aid to
France; therefor let it remain; his Bayonne Decree had been only a neigh-
borly way of supporting it. Armstrong was compelled to report to Jefferson
that "we have somewhat overrated our means of coercing the two great
belligerents. The embargo is a measure calculated above any other to keep
us at peace, but beyond this vou must not count upon it. Here it is not felt,
and in England it is forgotten."

7. One More Effort

The apparent indifference of the British and French to the embargo put
Jefferson's administration in a jaundiced light. New England Federalists
took savage pleasure in pointing to the decline of American prestige, and
praised Perceval's licensing order as a logical retort to the embargo; while
Republicans asserted that Napoleon had been justified in confiscating vessels
which paid a tax to England. The country was torn with dissension and
anxiety. When the talks on reparation for the Chesapeake incident failed,
and Canning's envoy, Rose, returned to England, morale reached low ebb.

John Armstrong urged the President to re-establish America's position in
the world by declaring war both on England and France, "Our war with
France would be but nominal, while with England it would take a character
of seriousness . . Union is our greatest desideratum ... A war with either
of these powers exclusively would paralyze half your energies, whereas a war
with both would put into motion every drop of American blood." The
advice was rejected. The President's heart was still set on the embargo; the
great experiment in peace-diplomacy had to be given its full trial. Even a
message from Napoleon offering to give America the much coveted Floridas
in return for an alliance was brushed aside.

In the spring of 1808, the citizens of the United States began to express
their feelings at the polls. Elections in New York brought a large Federalist
gain in the state legislature, and Massachusetts,, which had gone for Jeffer-
son in 1804, reverted to Federalism. Feeling against the embargo there was
so intense that even so respectable a Federalist as John Quincy Adams was
defeated for re-election to the Senate because of his support of the measure.
In June, Gallatin told the President that tibe Repijblicauis might well lose
the Presidential election in the autumn if the embargo leowioed iti focce.
"Vermont is lost; New Hampshire is a bad neigiiborliood; ami Peonsylvftiua

"OGRABME" [ 259 ]

is extremely doubtful." By August he was even more disturbed. "At this
moment the Western States, Virginia, South Carolina and perhaps Georgia
are the only sound states and ... we will have a doubtful contest in every
other." Madison, on whom the President had conferred his mantle, was
alarmed by the steady decline in his prospects. After all his service to the
government, from its very beginning, was he now to be cheated of his re-
ward by Jefferson's obstinacy? C. C. Pinckney of South Carolina, whom
the Federalists had chosen as their candidate, suddenly loomed very strong.
The President, however, remained unconcerned. Contrary to his advisers,
he believed that most Americans, in spite of all recent disappointments,
would vote for the man of his choosing.

When the election was held, and Madison was elected by a satisfactory
majority, the President felt that his work was almost done. But not quite.
The embargo was tottering could he still push it back into pkce? If so, it
would stand as a monument to his statesmanship, the hope of peace. With
only a few months more of office remaining to him, he girded himself for
a final effort. The Congress was asked to pass an Enforcement Act so far-
reaching as to put the entire economy of the country under the strict control
of government officials. Any merchandise anywhere, or any specie suspected
of being intended for export could be seized by a collector of revenue,
transferred at his will to another place, and held until a large bond was
posted to guarantee that it would not be shipped out of the country.
Collectors were to be immune to prosecution, and were to have the support
of the Army, Navy, and militia in their enforcement activities. The Congress
groaned, protests were loud and agonized, but so great was Jefferson's power
that both Houses gave him resounding majorities. With his signature, on
January 9, 1809, the Enforcement Act became law. Its effect was to impose
on America a rigid economic dictatorship, exerting its controls not at the
stage of production, but at the point of transportation.

8. The Pickering Conspiracy

Galktin^ as much as Jefferson, was active in promoting the Enforcement
Act, but his motive was almost diametrically opposed to that of the Presi-
dent He expected the new powers of the Executive to raise such a storm
in the country that the embargo would be reduced to absurdity. He was
right On every side the political skies darkened and the lightning flashed
"How much longer/' raged the Washington Federalist, "are we to pant
under the pestiferous breath of this poisonous dragon?" In New England,
men did more than write and talk, A drive toward secession gathered head
with far more power than in the past, for this time it expressed not the
ambition ol a few wealthy men, but the passions of the people. Timothy
Pickering, the former Secretary of State, and BOW a United States senator,

[260] THE POUNDING SUEF OF CRISIS l8o2-l8l2

was the prime mover; but behind the scenes George Cabot lent the weight
of his wealth and connections to the project. Both men were in secret
correspondence with high officials in England. Pickering had convinced him-
self that "Jefferson stands pledged to Bonaparte to maintain the embargo/'
This delusion, to which he clung with all the desperation of paranoia, be-
came the justification for his plot. If the President had sold out to France,
then any patriot had the right indeed, the duty to join with England. A
secret agent sent by the Governor of Canada, Sir John Craig, was admitted
to the Federalist councils, and this man, John Henry, wrote enthusiastically
to Craig of the effect of the embargo on the Boston magnates. 'In a few
months more of suffering ... the people of New England will be ready
to . , . establish a separate government . . . For a measure of this sort the
men of talents and property are now ready . . ."

With the Pickerings and the Cabots the President could have dealt, but
the ordinary people of New England, in their newspapers and their town
meetings, were another matter. As reports poured in upon him, he saw that
he could not persist longer in the embargo without risking civil violence on
a large scale. The Enforcement Act had touched off an explosion of popular
wrath. The Baltimore Evening Post quoted a circular distributed in New-
buryport, Massachusetts, and which urged the people to "nerve your arms
with vengeance against the Despot who would wrest the inestimable germ
of your independence from you." Jefferson himself later described the
situation: "I felt the foundations of the government shaken under my feet
by the New England townships."

That the embargo could not last much longer, Jefferson finally had to
admit. He hoped, however, to keep it on the statute books at least until he
retired from the Presidency on March 4, 1809. The rest would be the
responsibility of the Congress and President-elect Madison. A policy with
respect to the embargo had already been decided by Madison and Gallatin.
They planned to get rid of it simply by asking Congress, in late spring, for
an ultimatum to England. The British would be told that unless they
rescinded or suitably modified their Orders in Council, America would de-
clare war. It was Madison's belief that America had been placed in so un-
tenable a diplomatic position that war, with all its perils, had become the
only way to maintain the nation's self-respect. And in the resulting excite-
ment, the embargo would slide out of history with a minimum of criticism
of its sponsors.

9. "A Mere Subterfuge to Extricate Themselvetf'
Congress was by now so full of rebels^ Republicans as weD as Federalist^
that neither the House nor the Senate was willing to delay the death of tie
hated act out of consideration for Ptesideatial feelings* Febmtiy was ttoe

"OGRABME" [ 261 ]

decisive month. As Jefferson wrote in a letter to his son-in-law, Thomas
Randolph, the plan for "continuing their embargo till June, and then war"
was rejected in a series of angry debates. "A sudden and unaccountable
revolution of opinion took place the last week, chiefly among the New
England and New York members ... I believe it is perfectly certain that
the embargo will be taken off."

Even within a few days of retirement, and relatively unpopular as he
had become, Jefferson's influence on the Congress was still very much alive,
and stronger than Madison's. It was the general feeling that while he did
not openly wish to oppose the President-elect, nevertheless he was out of
sympathy with the proposal to go to war. The bill introduced by the
Republicans to kill the embargo was commonly believed to reflect Jefferson's
preference,, for it retained, in words at least, some semblance of his policy.
"Pacific non-intercourse," the people were told, would replace embargo.
The Non-Intercourse Bill excluded French and English ships from Ameri-
can ports, and prohibited all trade with the belligerent nations, while re-
pealing the embargo with respect to the rest of the world. But as David
Erskine said in a letter to Canning: "The intention ... is undoubtedly to
leave open as many places for their commerce as they can, consistently with
keeping up an appearance of resistance . . . but it is thoroughly understood
that the whole measure is a mere subterfuge to extricate themselves from
the embarrassments of the embargo system, and is never intended to be
enforced." It was common gossip in every port that smuggling was to be the
order of the day.

Perhaps the most important feature of the Non-Intercourse Bill was a
clause giving the President the power to reopen by proclamation trade with
either belligerent, if one or the other country should rescind its restrictions
on neutral commerce. Congress was offering American trade to the highest
bidder. A weak bill, detested even by most of the congressmen who voted
for it, nevertheless it seemed to them a lesser evil than either embargo or
war. On February 28, it was passed by large majority in both houses, and
Jefferson signed it at once. He had been spared the ignominy of ending
his term with the embargo flatly repealed; and the war which he had so
desperately tried to avoid was still not yet upon the country. One of his
enemies, Josiah Quincy, representative from Massachusetts^ summed up the
prevailing sentiment. "Jefferson has triumphed. His intrigues have pre-
vailed."

ao. Failure?

A few days later Jefferson left Washington for Monticello. To many, he
seemed to have failed, but not to himself. He had dated greatly for peace
and whatever else had happened, he had kept the peace. In a worid at

[ 262 I THE POUNDING SURF OF CRISIS l8o2-l8l2

war, the nation had gained precious years without war. The embargo had
hurt some Americans-but had it hurt America? Under its pressure, new
factories had sprung up here and there with American capital and American
labor. The seed of American industrialization, the key to economic inde-
pendence, had been planted. As for popularity, he knew its vagaries too
well to be greatly distressed by the loss of his own. Republican though he
was, he had never allowed his highest decisions to be shaped by public
opinion. In the final test, it was his private and highly individual opinion
that determined his most important measures. The notion of being guided
in statecraft by a public opinion poll would have made him scoff. He had
achieved popularity not because he yielded to public clamor, but rather be-
cause his intuitions of the public need were generally valid, and came to be
so recognized.

The embargo had sprung directly from his personal view that war would
work great evil in American life. It would have been far easier for him to
ask the Congress and the people to follow him to war. There was nothing
heroic about peaceful coercion. Jefferson was accused of timidity, of abasing
"the nation before its enemies; but his critics failed to perceive the moral
courage that he displayed in recommending his pallid economic expedients.
The popular course, the easy course, would have been to whip up the
emotions of the American people and the cantankerous Congress for a fight.

The people sensed the significance and sincerity of the President's pur-
pose, and even when they were shocked by the painful result, they did not
turn away from Jefferson. The embargo made men angry with him, but it
was the anger of a loving wife with a husband who loses the family savings.
She may tear her hair, but she does not want to divorce him. So the
generality of the people with Jefferson. As later in the case of another crafty
politician, Abraham Lincoln, they accepted his mistakes even while they
bemoaned them. Like Lincoln, Jefferson was bitterly hated and attacked
by a fringe of frightened conservatives, but the people the real owners of
America were always on his side. They never doubted his zeal and selfless-
ness in striving for what he conceived to be their security. He put the
preservation and full development of the individual life at the core of his
policy, and modified every other conviction that ran counter to it. The
ideas incessantly churned up by his creative mind were recognized as a sign
of vitality. He was Emerson's "endless seeker 7 ' personified, a man who knew
that new problems demanded original solutions, and who never stopped
trying to find them; and in spite of all that went wrong, the totality of his
administration was a popular success. His personality engraved itself on his
party, and his party became for a time almost identical with the nation,
scoring overwhelmingly at the polls for the next sixteen yeaics, while he was
still alive. For between him and the ordinary x&ea ami woman of the United

"OGRABME" [ 263 ]

States there was a deep and felt bond of tacit understanding. With a
healthy instinct for greatness,, recognizing the essential purity of his char-
acter, they trusted him as they have trusted only a few Presidents in history.
He was cautious, scheming, and inconsistent; but this did not prevent him
from being a great and good human being.

It is fair to say that he could not have been great and good, or human, if
he had not been sometimes inconsistent. In a very real sense, Jefferson's
inconsistency was a sign of the humility in which he found his strength. He
never pretended to the godlike righteousness of a John Adams. He was
always ready to listen, and to be guided by those who had knowledge that
he lacked. Jefferson felt the majestic uncertainty and mystery of the universe;
he liked men and he loved women; and he drew his power in statecraft
from these fundamental feelings. Moderate, cautious,, patient, humorous,
imaginative, he had the attributes needed to work for peace among the
terrors of the international jungle. With his passing from the Presidency,
something went out of it that could not be measured in terms of laws and
diplomacy inspiration.

Like George Washington, Jefferson understood that the chief function
of the President of the United States is not specified in the Constitution
that it is to lift the eyes and thoughts of the people above the levels of the
past. He knew how to make ordinary Americans feel part of the govern-
ment, sharing in the decisions of the statesman. He warmed their hearts,
and so they forgave him his failures. Ten years after he left office, they had
forgotten the embargo, and remembered only Jefferson's great deeds. He
wrote the Declaration from which America sprang to independence. He
fought for the rights of the ordinary man against tlae gluttons of privilege.
More than any other man, he reshaped the American republic into a de-
mocracy. And he kept the peace.

CHAPTER SIX

Tlie Erskine Fiasco

i. "On These Conditions"

Englishmen were compelled, in the winter of 1808-09, to hold their breath
and suspend their judgments in the face of the unpredictable. For the time
was again dark with anxiety. Reports from Spain, where for the first time a
large British army had been committed against Napoleon's forces, told of
alternate victory and retreat, hope and dread. At home, a depression had
gripped trade and manufacturing, and to account for it men pointed with
anger to the pinch of the American embargo.

Just before Christmas, Foreign Secretary George Canning was stirred by
a series of letters from David Erskine in Washington. On the basis of con-
versations with American leaders, Erskine reported that the United States
would declare war on England if the recent Orders in Council were not
revoked; but that if they were revoked, she was willing to remove the
embargo. The Foreign Secretary perceived at once that simultaneous with-
drawal of the 1807 Orders in Council and the embargo would leave Eng-
land in an advantageous position, for the old Rule of 1756 and the impress-
ment policy would still be in effect. For fifteen years his country had been
trying to persuade the Americans to accept these conditions in their trade
with Europe. If Erskine was correct, the moment was at hand; for the sake
of peace, Jefferson and Madison were prepared to yield. Canning thought
it possible that to assure the revival of British exports to America and in-
creased imports of grain, Spencer Perceval might be persuaded to recall the
recent Orders in Council. He had no way of knowing that pressures on
Jefferson would soon cause the embargo to be lifted without any concession
by England. There seemed every reason to take seriously both Erskine's
hint of possible compromise and his alarming talk of war. The Foreign
Secretary was well aware of Erskine's liking for the United States for one
thing, the young man had married an American but he thought him too
level-headed to let his judgment be influenced by sentiment. He concluded
that at least some small diplomatic gesture toward America was justified,
that rnild conciliation was the indicated tactic. In this mood, he sent for
the American minister, William Pinkney, and in a friendly meeting, hinted
that the British Government was amenable to an adjustment of differ-
ences, knowing that Pinkney would so report to Washington.

Thereafter, he composed two dispatches to Erskine. The fiist otitliaed

THE ERSKINE FIASCO [ 265 ]

his views on an acceptable compromise of the long-standing Chesapeake
dispute. The second and much longer dispatch went to the heart of the
problem of Anglo-American commerce. Three main points were made. To
begin, Canning said that he had gathered from Erskine's reports, that "the
American government is prepared, in the event of His Majesty's consenting
to withdraw the Orders in Council ... to withdraw contemporaneously
on its part the interdiction of its harbors to ships of war, and all non-
intercourse and non-importation acts, as far as respects Great Britain, leaving
them in force with respect to France . . .

"Secondly, . . . that America is willing to renounce . . . the pretension
of carrying on in time of war all trade with the enemy's colonies from which
she was excluded during peace.

"Thirdly, Great Britain ... is to be considered as being at liberty to
capture all such American vessels as may be found attempting to trade with
the ports of any of those [enemy] powers . . .

"On these conditions, His Majesty would consent to withdraw the Orders
in Council of January and November, 1807 . . ."

Canning then added a sentence which was to prove of great importance:
"I flatter myself that there will be no difficulty in obtaining a distinct and
official recognition of these conditions from the American government."
Now it was up to Erskine to make good the promise of his letters.

2. Madison Adds a Paragraph

By the time that Erskine received Canning's dispatches the embargo had
been lifted, the weak Non-Intercourse Act had been put in its place, and
James Madison was President. It was perfectly clear to the British envoy
that Canning's instructions, if rigidly adhered to, ruled out any hope of a
settlement of the Anglo-American troubles. Yet the chances of a settlement,
Erskine believed, were better at that moment than they had been for years.
The United States had not forgiven Napoleon for the ship seizures under
the Bayonne Decree. Popular sentiment had shifted toward England. The
people wer eager for an expansion of trade. The new Secretary of State,
Robert Smith, formerly Secretary of the Navy, was far better disposed to-
ward England than Jefferson, Madison, or Gallatin. Perhaps even more im-
portant, he was the brother of Samuel Smith, one of the most influential
members of the American Senate. It was an open secret that Senator Smith
and his followers had compelled Madison to put brother Robert in charge
of the State Department instead of Gallatin, who had been the President's
preference.

Early in April* Ersfcine was midy to act. In a talk with Robert Sraitit*, he
made it ckau that he was anxious to heal, once and for all* the running sore
of the Che$afw@ke controversy, and so opto the gate to a solution of the

[ 2 66] THE POUNDING SURF OF CRISIS l8o2~l8l2

commericial problem. Smith was surprised and delighted. Like all the
American officials, he liked Erskine for his friendly and modest style, and
his earnestness. In a very short time, they worked out an agreement. Eng-
land was to make monetary payments to the widows or orphans of the men
killed on the Chesapeake, and to release the American sailors taken from
the ship. The United States was to withdraw its demand for the court-
martial of Admiral Berkeley. Erskine then wrote a note disavowing Berke-
ley's action and offering reparation on behalf of His Majesty; and Smith in
reply wrote America's acceptance.

When the Secretary took his draft of the note to the President, Madison
found himself in an annoying position. There was a considerable coolness
between him and his Secretary of State. He resented the manner in which
Smith had been forced on him by the Senate,, and he considered him in-
adequately qualified for diplomacy; and he would have had to be more
than human not to be piqued by the fact that Smith was about to get credit
for a large and unearned diplomatic coup. Madison, "Little Jemmy," as his
party affectionately called him, at this time of his life had lost something of
his early vitality. He had come to prefer solitary work at his desk, reading
and writing reports, to the give-and-take of personal discussion. As the
French minister, Turreau, reported to Napoleon, there was in the President
something a little dry and pedantic^ a little dusty-bookish. But this did not
mean that he had mastered his ego. On the contrary, after his long sub-
ordination to Jefferson's fame and power, it clamored for nourishment.
To let Smith handle this affair by himself, without some assertion of his
own authority, was more than he was ready to concede; and perhaps, too,
as he later said, he questioned Smith's capacity.

Not that he considered rejecting Erskine's proposition. The British note
on the Chesapeake went far in conciliation, and Smith's draft reply was
generally adequate. But the President could not resist adding his personal
touch, and he wrote in a paragraph which according to Smith's subsequent
account, made the Secretary's hair rise. He did not, the President said, insist
on further punishment for Admiral Berkeley, but he felt that such punish-
ment "would best comport with what is due from His Britannic Majesty
to his own honor." Recognizing the danger of so gratuitous a rebuke to
sensitive England, Smith objected (if his story is to be credited) but he
had to give way to Presidential insistence. The note went to Erskine with
the added paragraph, was accepted, and dispatched to Canning.

3. "I Have Adhered to the Spirit . . ."

As Erskine and Smith settled down to the next and crucial stage of their
talks, the British envoy was confronted by a serious practical problem;
should he show Smith the instructions from his government? That Ginning

THE ERSKINE FIASCO [ 267 ]

expected him to do so seemed clear enough, from his remark about "obtain-
ing a distinct and official recognition of these conditions." However, Erskine
believed that he would be granted latitude in this respect, that it would be
enough if he put forward the three points made by the Foreign Secretary
not as unalterable premises, but rather as matter for discussion. Accordingly,
he said nothing of Canning's dispatch.

Smith was delighted by England's readiness, as reflected by Erskine, to
go more than halfway toward an agreement, and so was Madison,, when he
heard of the progress made. Neither seems to have thought to ask Erskine
whether he was expressing his government's orders. In accordance with
Canning's outline, Erskine asked first that America remove her restrictions
against British commerce, while enforcing them against France. Smith
pointed out that the Non-Intercourse Act had been passed by the Congress,
and that its repeal in whole or in part was the prerogative of the Congress.
The President could not constitutionally take this responsibility upon him-
self. A compromise was quickly reached: if England undertook to revoke
the Orders in Council, the President would exercise the powers given him
by the Non-Intercourse Act, to her benefit; and Congress would then be
asked to pass a law formalizing the changed commercial relations of the
two countries.

So far, so good. Erskine next raised Canning's second point, which in
effect required America to accept the Rule of 1756. Smith's reply evaded
a direct negative. The Non-Intercourse Act, he said, if enforced so as to rule
out trade with France or her dependencies, would make recourse to the
Rule of 1756 unnecessary. This was true enough, and Erskine agreed, and
went on. Would America consent to allow the British fleet to enforce non-
intercourse with France by seizing American vessels which violated the
President's ruling? Here Smith protested with some vigor that America, as a
sovereign power, could not consent to the execution of her laws by Great
Britain. But what had England to gain by insisting on such a right? Once
non-intercourse was put into effect against Napoleon, any American ship
trading with France or her colonies would be violating American law. If
the British navy seized such a ship, America could not very wdl present a
claim against England.

AH this struck Erskine as reasonable and convincing. He could see no
logical ground on which Canning could demur. Within a day or tw^ he
and Smith Exchanged formal notes covering their arrangements, A date
was established for withdrawal of the Orders in Council June ia On that
same date* it was understood, tihe Orders in Council would be
and intercoms with Great Britain, but not with France, would be
fey tie Unite* States. - - , - > ' < '

faced, up square^ to -the fact that 'he bed gone -beyond hfe in-

[268] THE POUNDING StJKF OF CRISIS l8o2-l8l2

structions. Reporting the agreement to Canning, he said, "It became my
duty to consider whether the Spirit of your instructions would be accom-
plished ... or whether it was incumbent on me to forbear from making
any Proposition, as I could not obtain a Compliance with the exact letter
of your Instructions ... I therefore rest my Vindication upon the Reasons
detailed ... for believing that I have adhered to the Spirit . . "

4. Slightly Premature

On April 19, 1809, the date on which the exchange of letters between
Erskine and Smith was completed, the agreement was no longer a White
House secret; and among those who had been taken into the confidence
of the administration was Senator Samuel Smith. Now the Senator, in
private life, was a Baltimore merchant, whose firm, Smith and Buchanan,
had made a fortune out of trade with Europe. It had been his large contribu-
tion to Republican campaign funds that had launched both him and
brother Robert on their political careers.

No practical businessman in his position could fail to take into account
that ships leaving the United States at once would reach England just in
time for the revoking of the Orders in Council on June 10, and that those
which arrived first would profit most. He was far too experienced, however,
to take advantage of his inside knowledge, and so throw suspicion of under-
cover favoritism on his brother. At the same time, neither he nor the Presi-
dent could doubt that word of the Erskine agreement would soon reach
other merchants, who would certainly be less considerate of the administra-
tion than Smith and Buchanan. How to put all American shipowners and
shippers on an equal footing with respect to the imminent resumption of
trade with England was a serious problem; and Madison thought it best not
to wait for June 10 before publishing the Erskine agreement, but to release
it to the press at once. He may well have been influenced, too, by awareness
that the political value of the announcement would be greatly enhanced
by surprise.

On April 20, the National Intelligencer carried the text of the Erskine-
Smith letters, together with a proclamation by the President revoking non-
intercourse with respect to Engjand, as of June 10. The country was elec-
trified. Hosannahs were heard up and down the Atlantic seaboard. Cargoes
were rushed on board merchant ships, and crowds at the wharves cheered as
their sails unfurled for England. Business improved overnight. Federalists
long resentful of Madison suddenly saw him through new lenses. Here was
no Jefferson, no Francophile, but a man who dearly understood the need for
re-establishing ties with England, and fighting Napoleon if need be* Speak-
ing for New England, Representative Dana of Connecticut rose m the
House to praise Madison. "The reproaches of party . , , hafe been hushed;

THE ERSKENE FIASCO [ 260 ]

industry is revived; mutual gratulations have succeeded to the voice of re-
proach . . . Can there be named any one act of any chief magistrate of the
United States which has produced a greater change than this?" The New
York press compared Madison to George Washington. Federalists an-
nounced that June 10 would be celebrated as a day of national rejoicing.
T^iere was almost no dissent in the country. Even Madison's worst ene-
mies gave him grudging credit. Some finicking critics did indeed assert
that the President's proclamation was, on the face of it, premature. But
captious comment of this kind was brushed aside in the general rejoicing.
So, too, were doubts which presently arose here and there as to ratification
of the agreement by the British Government. When men asked whether
the several hundred ships which had sailed for England would be safe from
seizure, Congressman John Randolph reassured the country in a widely
quoted speech. "Trade with Great Britain is unshackled . . . trade with
France is forbidden . . . Now, in the name of common sense, what more
could Mr. Canning himself want?"

5. Explosion in Whitehall

Mr. Canning could, and did, want a great deal more. There is a legend
in the British Foreign Office that when Erskine's dispatch on the Chesapeake
agreement came to him, and he saw Madison's reference to "his Majesty's
honor/' he rose from his chair with a burst of profanity that was heard
throughout the building, and sent clerks scurrying from their desks in fright
The agreement in other respects fell short of his instructions to Erskine,
but his attention was fixed on what seemed to him a deliberate offense to
the dignity of his government. Since when had Americans a claim to decide
what was due to the honor of an English monarch?

Thereafter, he read the text of the commercial agreement. By this time
he was calm, if prejudiced against whatever it might contain. Weeks earlier,
he had learned that the American embargo had been lifted, and that the
Non-Intercourse Act was not likely to prevent large-scale trade by the States
with Canada and the West Indies. This served his purpose excellently. So
long as England was supplied, a triangular trade was even better than a
direct trade, for it would give British shipping interests a monopoly of
the freightage of American goods from the colonies to England. Already
American cargoes carried in British bottoms had arrived in Liverpool from
Halifax. Any suggestion that this traffic revert to American vessels was
bound to be strongly resisted* Nor, under the circumstances, was there
reason for England to repeal the licensing system which brought her revenue
from American ta4e with Fiance- It had to be considered, tw, that the
assured a krge aiwplpei: of

[270] THE FOUNDING STOF OF CBISIS l8o2-l8l2

in the Atlantic, and many of these were sure to become the prizes of
deserving officers of England's navy.

The new agreement could not be allowed to stand. That its repudiation
would inevitably destroy Ersldne in his ministerial capacity Canning re-
gretted; but it was not to be helped. Erskine, by his overoptimism, had
unwittingly played into the hands of Spencer Perceval For years, Perceval
had been urging Canning to replace Erskine by a sound Tory,, and
specifically by one of England's boldest exemplars of the mailed fist in
diplomacy, the notorious Francis James Jackson. It was Jackson who had
delivered the British ultimatum to Denmark prior to the bombardment of
Copenhagen. His conduct to the Danish Prince Regent on that occasion had
been so offensive that even George III expressed astonishment that the
Prince had not kicked him out of his palace. Canning had resisted Perceval's
pressure on the ground that selection of "Copenhagen Jackson" to replace
the mild Erskine would be a slap in the face for Jefferson. But now a slap
was indicated for Madison and Jackson was the man to give it.

On July 20, 1809, Canning informed the British press that the draft ar-
rangement with the American Government had been repudiated, and
Erskine recalled. A few days later, Francis Jackson took ship for America,
with an impressive retinue of retainerssecretaries, a cook, and coachmen
and servants in colorful livery. His secret instructions from Canning suited
his imperious nature. As a pretext for repudiating the Erskine agreement,
he was to charge the American Government with fraud in its negotiation,
and with trickery in publishing the letters before their ratification. "The
American government," wrote Canning to Jackson, "cannot have believed
that such an arrangement as Mr. Erskine consented to accept was con-
formable to his instructions." As for the Chesapeake note, England would
accede to their conditions only if the United States first recalled the proc-
lamation barring British warships from her ports. The Orders in Council
would not be modified or withdrawn unless the United States first pro-
hibited all trade with France and her colonies. In any event, the Rule of
1756 would continue to be enforced by British warships, either with or
without the consent of the American Government.

Yet there is an indication that even now Canning wished to avoid war
with the United States,, for he persuaded Perceval to one important con-
cession. American merchant ships which had set to sea for England under
Madison's unwarranted proclamation of April would be allowed to com-
plete their round trips unmolested.

6. Pain in High Places

British notes containing word that the Erskine agreement was a dead
letter and that Jackson would be sent to Washington did not neadi President

THE ERSKINE FIASCO [ 271 ]

Madison until late in July. They had the sound of doom. There was nothing
for him to do but recall his April proclamation and re-establish non-
intercourse for England. At this news, the nation stood aghast. Bewildered
men gathered in the streets of the cities to ask eagh other whether war had
come; and the President's popularity went down like a falling tree, as the
disillusioned Federalist press broke out in a clamor against him.

In Washington, the feeling of terrified uncertainty rose when Erskine
sadly took his leave. Madison and Robert Smith could not know what to
expect from Jackson, but they feared the worst, and they were right. In his
first meeting with Smith, early in October, the new British minister made
no attempt to explain Canning's action. He had been instructed, he said
coldly,, to await new proposals from the United States; he had none to
make for England. To his pleasure, his aggressiveness staggered Smith. "It
was some time," Jackson complacently reported to Canning, "before he
could recollect himself sufficiently to give me any answer at all." A second
interview was even more calamitous. Upon Smith's strongly demanding an
explanation of Canning's reasons, Jackson retorted that Canning had him-
self spoken on the subject with William Pinkney; and this would have to
suffice.

When Smith's report to the President made it clear that there was no
hope in Jackson, Madison decided that the time had come to build up
a justifying dossier against an imminent declaration of war. He wrote out a
note, which the Secretary signed, telling Jackson that it was deemed
expedient to carry on all further discussions in writing. This picador's dart
enraged the bull. In a furious reply, Jackson wrote to Smith there did not
exist in the annals of diplomacy a precedent for cutting off verbal com-
munications so abruptly. But he was equipped for a written as well as for an
oral duel. As he saw it, Canning's instructions authorized him to insult the
American Government, and long experience had made him a master of
insults, bald and veiled. In his next letter, he said that Erskine, in making his
first proposals to Smith, had for practical purposes communicated Canning's
conditions orally; the American Government, he implied, knew from the
beginning that Canning would never approve the agreement; it had taken
advantage of a young and too eager diplomat,

Madison countered with restrained indignation. Jackson's letter surprised
him, he said. If Canning's instructions to Erskine 'lhad been communicated
. . . the arrangement would not have been made." Here was the opening
which Jackson awaited, and he lunged. The instractioBS, he insisted, ^were,
at the time, in substance made known to you/' They did not contemplate
the terms which Erskine was "actually induced to accept," and which ' Vere
substituted by you in lieu of those originally prepared/' The President toew
an itisult when he saw one. His feply sharply rebuked ^sevepl ine(eyaBt

THE POUNDING SURF OF CRISIS l8o2-l8l2

and improper allusions" in the minister's letter. "Such insinuations are in-
admissible."

Jackson's retort did not yield an inch. Any insinuation in his notes, he
said, could be "supported by incontrovertible evidence"; but he made no
attempt to state what the evidence was. A reply promptly came back from
Smith. "Sir . . . You have used a language . . . reiterating and even aggra-
vating the same gross insinuation ... no further communications will be
received from you . . " On the same day, Madison wrote Pinkney, in-
structing him to ask Canning for Jackson's recall.

America's shattered state of mind was indicated by the atmosphere of
Jackson's departure from Washington. When a resolution was introduced
into Congress supporting the President's action in ousting the envoy, it
was bitterly opposed by every Federalist in the House, on the ground that
Jackson had not insulted the President, and ought not to have been cen-
sured. A significant vote was taken, which showed that the country was
again splitting, not only on partisan but on regional lines; for of forty-one
Federalist votes against the resolution, almost all were from the North. In
the coastal cities pro-British sentiment was at a new peak. After leaving
Washington, Jackson stopped in Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York,
to be lionized by leading citizens, while the Massachusetts legislature by a
large majority voted a resolution condemning the President's stand. The
English envoy left the country convinced that although "the mob" might
be against him,, "the respectability" was on his side. War he considered
improbable the Cabots and the Pickerings would never permit it. Since
this was precisely the belief of most British Tories, Jackson's report to the
Cabinet went far to confirm Spencer Perceval in his policy of indifference
to American protests. Canning was criticized for having allowed the Whig
Erskine to remain so long in Washington. For the next two years of crisis
England would be represented in Washington only by a charge^, John
Morier, whose reports to tihe Foreign Office were too unperceptive to be of
much use as a basis for decisions, and who did nothing to check the steady
deterioration of Anglo-American relations.

CHAPTER SEVEN

The Cadore better

i. Sympathy from Napoleon

The spring and summer months of 1809, during which the Erskine agree-
ment was made and repudiated, tested all the moral and military resources
of Napoleon Bonaparte and France. An army under the first significant
British general to appear in a generation, Arthur Wellesley, had opened a
second front in Spain and compelled the diversion of large French forces
southward,, while Austria, revived by British gold, had mobilized for yet
another test in the east.

Yet even at the moment of greatest danger to his army, that immensely
active and logical mind never lost sight of the international diplomatic scene.
An anguished report of the Erskine agreement from Turreau in Washington
infuriated the Emperor. It seemed to presage an overt alliance between
England and America something to be avoided at all costs. The first need
was to beat an orderly diplomatic retreat. America must be given no pretext
to discriminate against France. Napoleon had dispensed with Talleyrand,
whom he correctly suspected of conspiring against him with the Austrians,
and he kept a close supervisory eye on his new Minister of Foreign Affairs,
Champagny, afterward the Due de Cadore. On June 10, the day when the
Erskine agreement was supposed to go into effect, he wrote from the eastern
frorit to Champagny instructing him to inform the American minister Ann-
strong that since the United States had caused Great Britain to revoke her
Orders in Council, France also would modify her restrictions on neutral
commerce; the Milan Decree would be revoked. But before America could
learn of this decision* news came to the Emperor of Canning's repudiation
of Erskine. Instantly, he reversed himself; no need now to conciliate; every-
thing stood as before. Sensing that President Madison must be badly
bruised, he did not miss the opportunity to salt the wound with sympathy,
In a letter to the President, he asked, what, after all, coultf one expect from
the British? "There is nothing astonishing in all this. It is a fine
of modern diplomacy."

Jn July,, the Emperofs cosily amd difficult campaign agair^t Au^trif
fruit in the triumph of Wagram, and his prestige rose again Jflbe a
balloon. The crashed Austrians were forced to pay a ba$ly aeocfal u
into tb^, French teastiry. Whoa thereafter E0rop^ leamec} that
expeditionary fore ia -Spaia had cwie |o rid^ a4 wwW ]be fcc&y to

[ 274 3 THE POUHDING STOF OF CRISIS l8o2-l8l2

escape capture, rebels everywhere scurried to cover and ambassadors from
neutral nations flocked to bend the knee. Far from making concessions to
America now, the Emperor pressed his advantage. In Vienna, early in
August, he drafted a stern decree ordering the seizure of all American ships
in European waters so long as non-intercourse remained in force for France.
A few days later, however, a letter came to him from John Armstrong, hint-
ing that the United States might soon go to war against England if Canning
persisted in his policy. This was too good a chance to waste. Napoleon
decided that the Vienna Decree, not yet published, was to be kept secret;
meanwhile he would find a better diplomatic basis for justifying seizures
of American ships.

2. The Emperor Outwits Himself

Napoleon was marking time, and he was never at his best when he
marked time. Money was his great concern. Reports coming to him from
the port towns of Holland, Germany, and Italy told of sharply falling tax
revenues. But without foreign trade, how could he collect taxes from people
who lived by it? Deputations of desperate merchants from the satellite
countries never ceased to beg him, however timidly, to relax his restrictions
against their commerce with England and America. In the autumn of 1809,
Napoleon came to an impulsive decision which, as much as any foreign
army, was to wreck his empire. He yielded to the demands of the tradesmen
and the urgencies of his treasury. At the very moment when England's
military hopes had collapsed and England's economy was at its lowest ebb,
he abruptly and voluntarily opened a breach in his continental wall A new
decree authorized "trade by exception' 7 an imitation of Perceval's licens-
ing system. Permits would be sold authorizing ships flying neutral flags to
put out from European ports under French control with food to be sold to
the British at high prices, and to be paid for in specie. In this way, he
hoped vainly to drain England of hard money, and produce a financial
crisis that would speed her capitulation while strengthening his own
treasury. A crop of strange flags never seen before or since on ships promptly
blossomed in the North Sea and the English Channel. Little German
principalities of the interior Pappenberg, Kniphausen, Tdnningen, Varel
which had never owned a ship* but which were technically neutral, sud-
denly found themselves the nominal possessors of a merchant marine.

It was Napoleon's belief that he could stop licensing whenever he chose.
In this he failed to reckon with the momentum of trade, once it is estab-
lished. In the year which followed his "trade by exception" decree, eighteen
thousand licenses were issued to neutral ships a development which,
French historians have held, saved England from starvation, cotlaps^ and
defeat in 1810. Even more serious was the effect on Napoleon's Edtiltary

THE CADORE LETTER [275]

position, for "trade by exception/' as much as anything, cost him his alliance
with Russia. The year before, Napoleon had presented himself to Czar
Alexander as a man of principle, fighting for the integrity of the European
continent against British commercial aggression. Partly on this ground, he
had won Alexander's support. Despite a falling off of Russian trade and
complaints from his people, Alexander had tried to uphold the pledges
given to Napoleon at Tilsit; but when he learned that the Emperor himself
had betrayed the Continental System, his patience gave way. If France
traded with England by way of neutral vessels, why should needy Russia
suffer any longer? From this point on,, Alexander insisted on reopening
Russian ports to neutral ships, and the cloud of war between Russia and
France rose on the eastern horizon.

To Napoleon, who for a time did not sense the full force of Alexander's
resentment, his new policy in its early months seemed a success, for British
money was coming into Europe in agreeable quantities. So far as the United
States was concerned, he made no concessions. However neutral, she was
not to share in the profits of the new trade with England. It amused him
to hear that, with the announcement of "trade by exception," scores of
American vessels had sailed for ports under his jurisdiction. Canning,, in a
similar situation, had permitted American vessels which had rushed to Eng-
land during the Erskine affair to return. But the Emperor was in no mood
for diplomatic niceties. Orders went out to the satellite nations: seize the
American ships. A letter to the Prussian government left no doubt of his
attitude: "Let them enter the ports and arrest them afterward. Deliver the
cargoes to me and I will take them as part payment on the Prussian debt."

3. "The Open <md Loyal Policy of His Majesty"
Ruthless though he was in diplomacy, Napoleon preferred when feasible
to give at least lip service to the sanctions of usage and his former declara-
tions. It was all very well to confiscate American vessels, but some justifica-
tion was needed. When John Armstrong demanded to know the reason for
the ship seizures, he found difficulty in replying. Early in Januaiy 1810, he
wrote to Champagny, "Have several conferences if necessary, with the
American minister . . . Let me know your opinion on the measures proper
to be taken to get out of the position we are in." A month later Champagny
thought he had an answer. It was all the fault of the Americans. He told
Armstrong: "His Majesty could place no reliance on the policies of the
United States," for although America had "no ground of complaint against
France," nevertheless she had penalized the Freed* along with the British
in the Non-Intercourse Act. "He considered himself bound to ofder re-
prisals on American shipping . . American vessels have been seized be-
cause Auiericws have seized French vessek"

[276] THE POUNDING SURF OF CRISIS l8o2-l8l2

This, however, was too patently false to survive a diplomatic test. Arm-
strong wrote a hot reply, demolishing Champagnes accusations, denying
American aggression against French commerce, and detailing injuries in-
flicted on the United States by France. He concluded on a note of angry
satire. "The confidence I feel in the open and loyal policy of his Majesty
altogether excludes the idea that the rule was merely found for the occasion,
and made to justify seizures not otherwise justifiable/'

By the spring of 1810, over two hundred American vessels and cargoes
had been taken, with a value of ten million dollars^ and Napoleon tried
again to build up his diplomatic position. A new decree, issued from
Rambouillet, was international faking at its least inhibited. It now appeared
that, after all, the disputed American ships and cargoes had not actually
been confiscated. True, they had been sold, but the resulting moneys had
been deposited in "a sinking fund/ 7 Let American shipowners not despair;
the seizures might yet be the subject of adjudication and reimbursement.
At last the Emperor felt that he was on solid ground. When Armstrong
next complained, he could be told to file suit in any instance of improper
seizure* and the French courts would decide. What could be fairer than
that?

4. The Private Emotions of Samuel Smith

Now the American people knew the worst. Canning had insulted them,
Napoleon had betrayed them. Non-intercourse, like embargo, had failed.
In a report to the Congress, Albert Gallatin warned that it was "inefficient
and altogether inapplicable to existing circumstances . * . Exportation by
land [to Canada] is not forbidden . . . Ships sail daily for British ports/'
He concluded that "all the restrictions [affecting] . . . the commerce and
navigation of the United States ought to be removed/'

Was peaceful coercion therefore ended as a policy? Not quite yet There
arose in the House of Representatives one of its elder statesmen, the former
Speaker, Nathaniel Macon, to introduce a bill to replace non-intercourse.
Answering Gallatin's call to remove all restrictions on the country's ships,
Macon's bill proposed at the same time to exclude British and French
vessels from the nation's harbors. Importations from England and France
were to be made only in American bottoms. The way was left opeiv never-
theless, to restore normal trade relations with England and France if they
would lift their restrictions on American commerce.

It was a self-respecting bill, most congressmen agreed, and urgently
needed. At that veiy time, hundreds of British smuggling vessels were hover-
ing off the American coast waiting to pick up cargoes deposited for them at
secret rendezvous by American suppliers. The profits of this iHegpl tede
with its freedom from government supervision and taxes, wop maMjag law-

THE CADORE LETTER

breaking merchants rich. Something had to be done. Although most
Federalists objected to the Macon bill, on the ground that it would damage
England much more than France, some joined the Republicans in voting
for it. Seventy-three to fifty-two,, the House supported Macon; and the bill
then went to the Senate.

There too the Republicans had a majority, if only a narrow one. It
depended, however, on a group headed by Samuel Smith, and Smith on
this issue was prepared to break with the administration. It was his guiding
principle that any measure urged by Gallatin, "the foreigner," had to be
opposed. A more bitter personal enmity did not exist in Washington. When
Robert Smith gave a dinner for Thomas Jefferson, and invited the Galla-
tins, the invitation was ignored,, and an explanation refused. It was an open
secret that Gallatin believed Samuel Smith to have profited by inside
knowledge of his brother's plans, and by illegal trade with England. He
had openly charged that during Robert Smith's tenure as Secretary of the
Navy the Baltimore firm of Smith and Buchanan obtained naval funds to
which it was not entitled; and he never withdrew these charges, although
the written evidence in the matter seemed to exonerate the Smiths.

Besides Gallatin's backing of Macon's bill, Samuel Smith almost certainly
had more concrete reasons for wanting it defeated. The Senator, it appears,
was then deeply committed, through Smith and Buchanan, to contracts to
supply English purchasers with American produce a fact which> if true,
could hardly have failed to influence his judgment. When the Macon bill
came before the Senate, he rose and moved to amend it before a conference
could be held with House leaders. The reading of his amendment stunned
the chamber. Of the entire bill he proposed to leave only one clause that
which excluded French and British warships from American ports. For the
rest, there were to be no restrictions whatever on foreign vessels. A vote
was held; a cynical coalition of Federalists and Smith Republicans voted
for the amendment; it passed, although barely; and the battered corpse of
the bill went back to the House. There, in an outburst of indignation, the
Smith amendment was rejected. Once more the original bill was delivered
to the Senate^ together with an urgent request from Madison that it be
passed.

By this time the attention of the nation was riveted on the contest be-
tween President and Senator over a law which might mean the difference
between war and peace. Washington boiled with onriosity as to how Smith
would reply to Madison, for any attack on the administration was certain
to react upon his brother Robert. His speecb was long and ccrfused, feat
ingenious. The Macon biU, he felt, would cause England to retaliate on
American commerce by barring American rfbdps few ber ports. It was tibj@s-
foie only an indirect way of restoring the einfeaigo, Althoigii he

[278] THE POUNDING SURF OF CRISIS l8o2-l8l2

had supported Jefferson's embargo, that, he contended, had been an open
measure, while this was a deception. "I will never agree ... in this side
way to carry into execution a great national measure/'

He knew precisely what he had done. The Macon bill was dead, and the
administration had nothing else to offer. At the end of ^ his speech, he
turned to an approving Senator in the next seat and said> "I have pleased
you and my constituents, but I have killed Robert Smith." From this mo-
ment on, he felt sure that brother Robert would be ousted from the State
Department; the only question was, when.

5. "I Am For Resistance by the Sword"

Desperately Nathaniel Macon tried to help Madison salvage something
from the wreck of peaceful coercion. For with the defeat of the Macon bill,
war talk was rapidly gaining head. In the Senate a lanky thirty-three-year-
old Kentucky lawyer named Henry Clay rose to say that he had not liked
the bill, it was "a crazy vessel, shattered and leaky," but he had voted for it
because it afforded "some shelter, bad as it was." At least, it represented
resistance "the peaceful resistance of the law. When this is abandoned
without effect, I am for resistance by the sword." Many influential men were
inclined to agree. In Congress the great question was whether anyone could
devise a bill which Samuel Smith would accept. The proposal that emerged
in May 1810, was so feeble that even Macon, who as chairman of the re-
sponsible committee had to present it, was ashamed of it. Macon's Bill
No. 2, as it came to be called, removed all restrictions not only on Ameri-
can but also on British and French merchant shipping. Its only pretense
of resistance to foreign aggression lay in a clause excluding the war-
ships of the belligerents from American waters and in raising duties on
foreign imports by 50 per cent. Finally, it sought to bribe either England or
Franceno matter which to treat the United States more kindly. If France
should repeal her restrictive decrees on American trade before March 3,
1811, then intercourse with England would be broken off; and vice versa.
Congressmen rose to denounce the bill as weak, na!ve> dangerous but
no one was able to devise another that .bad a chance of acceptance. Macon
No. 2 was passed by the House, and with one amendment, by the Senate.
This amendment, however, was significant Introduced by the Smith fac-
tion, it struck out of the bill te only useful provisioiaMlie increase in duties.
Gallatin's treasury was not to benefit at the expense of Smith and Buchanan.
Madison was in a grim, fatalistic mood as he signed the bill. He knew
that it lowered the nation's diploiwtic gnaicl to knew tbat his eaemie8>
England, the Federalists, and Samuel Smith had triumphed; but with non-
intercourse repealed, even Macon No. z, he t&fegb^ was better than no
legislation at all The Republican press growled to xl^pwtiafot and

THE CADORE LETTER [ 279 ]

resentment. Was the policy of sovereign America merely this: that if one
of the great powers would agree to cease to harm us, we would undertake
to resent the outrages inflicted on us by the other? Many a congressman
began to worry about the reaction of his constituents. A Kentucky repre-
sentative, Richard M. Johnson, later to be a Vice-President of the United
States, expressed his disgust with the Congress. "My hopes . . . rest upon
the people . . . We may disgrace ourselves,, but the people will rise in the
majesty of their strength, and the world will be interested in the spectacle."
In Whitehall, news of Macon No. 2 was received with glee. Francis
Jackson wrote that Congress "has completed my triumph by repealing,
without any concession on our part, the famous Non-intercourse Law . . .
for the repeal of which Erskine last year had agreed to sacrifice our Orders
in Council . . . They have covered themselves with ridicule and disgrace/'
Canning, while equally pleased, took a broader view. It seemed to him
that the United States, by opening her ports to British commerce, had
virtually declared war on France.

6. The Emperor Reacts

The Macon law struck at the heart of Napoleon's economic strategy, by
affording England ample supplies from across the Atlantic. Speaking in
Parliament, Canning predicted that reprisals by France against the United
States would not be long in coming. The unexpected, however, was
Napoleon's specialty.

The Macon law acted on him like a high-voltage shock. No sooner had
Armstrong sent him a copy of the new act, than with immense energy he
set about to shore up the tottering walls of his Continental System. An
effort was made to put a stop to "trade by exception," by forbidding the
issuance of further licenses. Denmark and Prussia were told that if they
failed in strict enforcement of his anti-British and anti-American measures,
they would have to reckon with his army. Brother Louis, King of Holland
received a letter saying, "I learn that in defiance of my will,, you calmly
permit your ports to remain open to English trade ... I shall be compelled
to forget that you are iny brother . . ." Shortly thereafter, French troops
entered Holland and occupied the customs, and Louis abdicated. Sweden,
whose new Prince Regent, Charles XIV, was Napoleon's former Marshal,
Bernadotte, was threatened with war if the blockade of England was
not enforced. To Czar Alexander in St. Petersburg went a letter strongly
urging him to use the Russian fleet to seize six hundred Merchant vessels,
most of them neutrals, then known to be In tike Baltic. These ate no
neutrals/' wrote Napoleon. 'They are all English^ disguised under various
flags . . . They must be confiscated, This wiH destroy Engjbttd " When
Alexander refused, and referred to Napoleon's own recent scbmfe WE *'trade

[280] THE POUNDING SUKF OF CRISIS l8o2-l8l2

by exception/' the French Emperor gave secret orders to his staff to prepare
for war with Russia.

War with Russiayes. But war with the United States? How could that
benefit France? Studying the Macon law, Napoleon realized that it offered
him an extraordinary opportunity. Superficially, its relaxation of restraints
seemed to give England a monopoly of American trade, since France, with-
out an effective navy, had no way to convoy merchant vessels to the United
States. Actually, however, its fourth section contained a phrase so loose as
to leave an opening for a Napoleonic coup. "In case either Great Britain
or France shall . . . revoke or modify her edicts . . ." the President was to
announce the fact by proclamation.

For Napoleon to revoke his decrees was unthinkable: such an action
would admit the failure of the Continental System and play into British
hands. But to appear to revoke them that was another matter. With skill
and luck, he might yet induce the United States to break off intercourse
with England. A proclamation such as that contemplated by the Macon
law might even in the end produce an Anglo-American war. If so, the Brit-
ish would have fewer naval and land forces available for fighting in Europe,
and he would be in less danger of invasion from the west when the moment
came to invade Russia. Could Madison be induced to proclaim that France
had revoked her restrictive decrees? After all, he had announced the restora-
tion of intercourse with England on no greater authority than Erskine's
note. A similar move on France's behalf might be worth an entire army
corps to France.

Much depended on the attitude of the American Armstrong. If he did
not create obstacles, Napoleon would have a clear avenue to the President.
Success or failure then would hinge on Madison's interpretation of the
Macon law on how much proof he would require that the revocation of
the French decrees was bona fide* before issuing a proclamation against
England. Napoleon was accustomed to taking long chances and he saw
nothing to be lost by trying. On August 5, 1810, the Emperor called to his
side Cbampagny, now the Due de Cadore, and dictated a letter to
Armstrong.

7. The Big Lie

This celebrated letter, signed by Cadore, was tp put more strain op Anglo-
American relations than even the Chesapeake incident or the repudiation
of Erskine. It began with the bland statemeqt that the Emperor regarded
the new American law with the kindest feeling as an act of friendliness
toward France. The preceding Non-Intercourse Act; fa$ sai4 tad been a
wicked, an injurious law; but BOW Congress h^J yrisdy rctooed their steps.
'The ports of America are open to French commerce^ aftfl .France is no

THE CADORE LETTER [ 281 ]

longer interdicted to the Americans. In short, Congress engages to oppose
that one of the belligerent powers which shall refuse to acknowledge the
rights of neutrals. In this new state of affairs, I am authorized to declare
to you, sir, that the decrees of Berlin and Milan are revoked, and that after
the first of November [1810] they will cease to have effect; it being under-
stood that in consequence of this declaration, the English shall revoke their
Orders in Council ... or that the United States, in accordance with the
act which you have just communicated, shall cause their rights to be re-
spected by the English."

And finally, a touch of the sentimental flattery to which, Napoleon was
convinced, Americans were always susceptible. "It is with the most particular
satisfaction, sir, that I make known to you this determination of the
Emperor. His Majesty loves the Americans . . . The independence of Amer-
ica is one of France's chief claims to glory . . . That which can contribute
to the independence,, to the prosperity and to the liberty of the Americans
the Emperor considers to be in accord with the interests of his empire."

That same night, which he spent at the Trianon, Napoleon issued a secret
order to his ministers. All American vessels and cargoes in the ports of
France not subject to seizure under previous decrees were now to be
confiscated and sold. Other American vessels wishing to enter French ports
should be allowed to do so, but might not depart without special permis-
sion. America knew nothing of the Trianon order until 1821, the year of
Napoleon's death on St. Helena, Albert Gallatin, then minister to France,
accidentally uncovered the decree in a file of old documents, and sent it to
the White House with an interesting comment: "No one can suppose that
if it had been communicated or published at the same time [as the Cadore
letter] the United States would . * . have taken that ground which
ultimately led to the war with Great Britain."

When Cadore's letter came to John Armstrong, on August 6,, 1810, it
found him in a low mood. For months his dispatches had been repeating
monotonously that Napoleon showed no intention of returning the seized
ships or modifying his decrees. Armstrong's warnings of America's "high
indignation" had left the French Government unmoved. The Emperor did
not much care for him, and at one time, in fact, made a move to have him
recalled. A long diet of futility and frustration had left his ego hungry for
approval. Now into Ms gloom came a bright and unexpected ray of hope,
the Cadore letter. Taken at its face value, It was everything for which
Armstrong had been working. The thought of ending his mission m Paris
on so majestic a triumph may well have weakened his native skepticism.
The question whether there had actually beem an imperial order fevoMog
the Berlin and Milan decrees could not have failed to occur to him. But
was this a time to look gift letters in flie motive? If demands -were to be

[282] THE POUNDING STOF OF CRISIS l8o2-l8l2

made on the Emperor to prove his words, let them come from Madison,
not himself.

His decision was to send Cadore's letter to the President, without com-
ment, and at the same time to notify Pinkney, in London, of the substance
of the letter. These dispatches were not long on their way when a disturbing
note came from Robert Smith. It instructed Armstrong to warn France that
she must restore confiscated American property and show "indisputable
evidence" of a change in her policy before her relations with America could
improve. Misgivings now smote him, and he wrote an urgent letter to the
French Foreign Office. It centered on a single question: now that the Berlin
and Milan decrees were revoked, was France prepared to negotiate com-
pensation for cargoes seized and sold under subsequent decrees? The reply
was a flat negative. "The merchandise . . . having been confiscated as a
measure of reprisal, the principle of reprisal must be the law in the affair."

This was ominous, it threw grave doubt on the Cadore letter, but the
time had passed for Armstrong to ask for "indisputable evidence" of the
revocation order. His work in France, he felt, was done, and he took ship
for America, leaving the American legation in the charge of his chief aide,
Jonathan Russell.

8. The Fog of Power

Madison's personality now became the key to American policy; and it is
interesting to note how shrewdly Napoleon had gauged it. The principles
of government of which the President had nobly written in the great days
of America's beginnings had lost something of their meaning for him. The
warming glow of life in the inspired world of Franklin, Washington, and
young Jefferson had vanished, and there was a chill in the political air.
Madison remained a conscientious Republican, and upheld humanitarian
ideals, but without heat His mind had once been excited by ideas, philos-
ophy had been his preoccupation; now he used his wide legal knowledge
to serve strictly partisan ends. Unlike Jefferson, who even at his most
inconsistent never lost his passionate devotion to peace,, Madison was not
passionate about anything. His remarks about war were always detached
and cool.

In years of bachelorhood, with few if any women in tis life, his manner
had become solemn, humorless, and suspicious. The private virtues foe
which those who knew him best gave him credit were those of self-control:
he was always kind to slaves and servant^ (but he never took a stand against
slavery); he was temperate in his habits; his domestic life was a model of
decorum. A late marriage did not break the crast which had grown around
his emotions. If his childlessness ever gnawed at him, be did not say so; he
had few close friends, outside of politics. It was difficult for hm to nubaai

THE CADORE LETTER

with anyone. He left the social side of his life in the hands of his wife Dolly,
and the impression they made was caught by Washington Irving in a letter:
Dolly "a fine, portly, buxom dame, who has a smile and a pleasant word
for everyone . . . but as to Jemmy Madison -oh! poor Jemmy! He is but a
withered little apple-John."

In dealing with Napoleon in the Cadore affair the President was at the
disadvantage of having no guidance from Armstrong. The letter declaring
that the Berlin and Milan decrees would be lifted on November i reached
him five weeks before that date. The implication that he drew from
Armstrong's failure to comment on it was that his minister considered it to
be valid. Nevertheless, Madison's own reaction was one of distrust. His notes
to Armstrong, whom he imagined to be still in Paris, show that the flaws
in the letter did not escape the President's practiced eye. Cadore offered no
proof whatever that the decrees had been repealed, and his wording was
ambiguous. Was the phrase "in consequence of this declaration" to be taken
to mean that the French decrees had been revoked, effective November i,
or merely that they would be revoked, if . . . ?

9. The Calculation

Although Madison never made a plain statement of the motives which
led to his notorious proclamation in the Cadore affair, significant clues in
the evidence strongly suggest the direction of his thinking. He seems actu-
ally to have believed that acceptance of the Cadore letter at its face value
might stimulate England to lift her Orders in Council. For why, after all,
would even so rigid a Tory as Perceval wish to let America drop into the
open arms of France? And with the British orders removed, even if Napo-
leon had not previously revoked his own decrees, the Emperor would have
no excuse for holding back any longer. Thus, so long as Napoleon lifted
his decrees, regardless of whether he did so before or after the American
proclamation, there was a chance that the affair would end with the United
States freed from the worst of the restrictions on her trade, and at peace
with both belligerents*

In calculating the British reaction to his contemplated proclamation, the
President was encouraged by dispatches from PiiJoiey, Dogged was the
word for Britain's mood, not confident. Personal rivalries in the Tory govern-
ment had caused the sharp-toothed Canning to resign, and the new Foreign
Secretary, Lord Wdlesley, brother to the great general, was conducting
his business in a quiet and unprovocative style. England was und^gping
a serious economic, as well as military crisis, and pressure on PetcevaFs
government from manufacturers and merchants to make sonic concessions
to America was increasing from day to day. Following receipt of the Cadore
letter, Pinkney reported, he had obtained an interview with WeBesley,

[284] THE POUNDING SUKF OF CRISIS l8o2-l8l2

and had told him Armstrong's news* The answer had been courteous and
definite. "Whenever the repeal of the French decrees shall have actually
taken effect, and the commerce of neutrals shall have been restored . . .
his Majesty will feel the highest satisfaction in relinquishing a system which
the conduct of the enemy compelled him to adopt/'

Into this remark Madison may well have read hope that if America pro-
claimed the revocation of the French decrees, and threatened England
with a resumption of non-intercourse, Wellesley might make at least some
concession. It would be a gain, for example, even if he only sent a minister
to the United States for serious negotiation. Since the Jackson episode,
America had been denied the presence of a British envoy plenipotentiary.
But if the British remained hostile and the result of the proclamation
turned out to be warat least, it would be with one country only, and that
the ancient enemy. Two weeks before issuing the proclamation, the Presi-
dent wrote to Jefferson of "the advantage at least of having but one contest
on our hands at a time."

10. Toward Florida, via Cadore

Madison could not fail to consider that if he issued his proclamation,
and it proved to be without foundation, he would be called cheat or naif .
As an experienced politician, however,, he was prepared to shrug off criticism
that did not actually eat into his power. So far as popularity was concerned,
the Cadore letter, even if it were a Napoleonic trick, might indirectly gain
more than it lost. It struck him that adroit use of the moment might enable
him to fulfill at last Jefferson's dream of acquiring the Floridas. For years,
the chief deterrent to seizure of Mobile had been the threat of Napoleonic
vengeance. Acceptance of the Cadore letter, however, constituted in effect
the diplomatic alignment of America with France against England. This,
to Napoleon, had become far more important than the Floridas; under the
circumstances he might let them slip into American hands without much
protest As for the Spaniards* there was little reason to worry about their
resistance. In West Florida especially, the Spanish government was in
desperate straits. It did not know whether the mother country should be
considered as allied to France through submission to Napoleon, or to Eng-
land through revolutionary upsurge. The Spanish governor at Mobile, un-
able to find money to pay his starving troops, was in no position to offer a
serious contest to American invaders. Sooner or later, Madison reasoned,
the Floridas would be part of the United States; why not sooner? For pre-
text, it could be plausibly alleged that British naval forces, if not f orestalled
might seize Mobile; and that mauy Florida Spaniards themselves sought
American aid against their decayed government In the context of the
Cadore affair, a move into the Floridas was Indicated,

THE CADORE LETTER [ 285 ]

Although, as the President wrote to Jefferson, he had "serious questions
as to the authority of the executive" to take action in the matter without
specific Congressional sanction, he would not let this deter him. He felt an
urgent need to strengthen his personal hold on the country, and especially
on his own party. The past three years had seen his political position steadily
deteriorate. A strong move was being launched under cover to pit James
Monroe against him for the Republican nomination in 1812. One of
Monroe's vote-getting appeals was his reiterated conviction that the
Floridas should be seized without delay. Another was that a compromise
with England could and should be worked out. The first position made him
popular with Republican expansionists, the second with Federalists. By
moving into the Floridas at once Madison would pre-empt one of Monroe's
sources of advantage; by bringing the British controversy to a head, he
might dampen the rest of his political ammunition.

Not, therefore, one, but two proclamations were called for. The first was
issued by the President on October 27, 1810. It stated that the Governor of
the Orleans territory, W. C. C. Claiborne, was authorized to take possession
of West Florida, although that region would "not cease to be a subject of
fair and friendly negotiation." At the word, men throughout the south and
west whooped with joy. A week later^ they doubled their shouts in praise of
the President, when they read his second proclamation. The French
decrees had been revoked. England was put on notice of a revival of non-
intercourse, in three months, unless that country followed France's example.

Gasping Federalists immediately formed their own ideas about the mean-
ing of the two proclamationsa deal between Madison and Napoleon
the Floridas in exchange for war with England. The existing evidence, how-
ever, points the other way. Madison's letters of the period strongly suggest
his feeling that, in the Florida seizure, he was overreaching Napoleon. To
Jefferson he wrote his expectation that England, France^ and Spain would
all "resent our occupancy of West Florida," which might even bring on "a
quadrangular contest"

Voices were raised in Congress, asking for proof that Napoleon meant
what he said in the Gadore letter. How, lacking proof, could a President
who had suffered from the Ersldne affair risk another such folly? That
Madison should feel some uneasiness over what he had done was natural
enough. Not knowing that Armstrong was on his way home, and badly
wanting clarification of the Cadore letter, he had Robert Sinitih write to
Paris on the day of the proclamation in words through which anxiety un-
mistakably burned. "You will let the French government understand . . ,
[that the proclamation has been issued] on the ground that the rqpeal of
these decrees does involve an extinguishment of all the ediets of Franc actu-
ally violating our neutral rights." "In issuing ttie proclamation it bas been

[286] THE POUNDING SURF OF CRISIS l8o2-l8l2

presumed . . . [that America's claims] on the subject of the sequestered
property will have been satisfied/' In a word, the American government,
having proclaimed the revocation, was expressing doubts of France's good
faith, and trying to leave escape holes for the President.

1 1 . Winter of Suspense

Dispatches coming to the President from his level-headed charg< in Paris,
Jonathan Russell, soon threw a murky light on the Cadore letter. Russell
saw no reason to believe that the Berlin and Milan decrees had been re-
voked. On the contrary, a new seizure of an American ship under those
decrees had just been announced in France. Disapppointed, the President
nevertheless did not lose all hope. Napoleon had recalled General Turreau,
and a new minister,, S6rurier, was on his way to Washington. Perhaps he
bore some proof of the revocation? This prospect too turned out to be a
mirage. When S6rarier presented his credentials, and Robert Smith eagerly
asked him about the status of the supposed revocation decree, the new
envoy merely replied that he had no instructions in the matter. The implica-
tion was clear.

The news from Pinkney too was grave, Wellesley had gone into a
profound silence. In response to a request for action on the President's
proclamation, the Foreign Secretary would say only that he had been unable
to obtain authentic evidence of the repeal of the French decrees. Pinkney
then addressed several strong notes to his lordship, one of which was almost
an ultimatum: it asserted that friendly relations could not exist between
the two countries so long as England continued to restrict neutral trade.
Still the Foreign Office gave no sign of interest. Finally the frustrated Ameri-
can announced his intention to return home, on the ground that England
continued to be represented at Washington only by a charg d'affaires.
Urbanely, Wellesley opposed no obstacle to Pinkney's return. He agreed
to send a minister to Washington; but there was no suggestion that the
new envoy, Augustus Foster, would be empowered to negotiate concessions
for England.

For Madison,, that winter of 1810-11 was full of dark portents. His com-
mitment to the Cadore letter was turning out to have large implications
for his domestic as well as for his foreign policy. It played a part, for example,
in the effort of Republican extremists in Congress to get rid of the Bank of
the United States by declining to renew its expiring charter. Gallatm,
with Madison's approval, was privately trying to save the bank, for since
Hamilton's time, he had changed his mind about its value. Whatever its
defects, it had with the years become an integral part of the financial
structure of the federal government; and he feared tihe consequences if the
Treasury was forced to rely for financing on greedy state bank?.- Brit wfaea

THE CADORE LETTER [ 287 ]

Gallatin urged Madison to use his influence openly to save the bank, the
President drew back. Its antagonists included the West's most powerful
politicians,, headed by Henry Clay; and Clay had linked his position to the
President's proclaimed stand toward England. A large part of the bank's
stock was held by Englishmen; were foreigners and potential enemies to be
allowed to dictate the nation's fiscal policies? "All history/' Clay declaimed
in his ringing voice, "warns us that republics ought to guard against foreign
influence." Had the influence of the British stockholders "released from
galling and ignominious bondage one solitary American seaman?" To vote
for the bank, he made it understood, would be to vote for the British
Government and its Orders in Council, and against Madison's proclama-
tion. Everyone remembered, too, that Madison himself had once sternly
opposed Hamilton on the issue of the bank. Now, with his foreign policy
in the balance,, and an election approaching, he dare not take the risks
involved in the bank's defense. Silence was his refuge. Although Gallatin
warned him that the death of the bank would make chaos of the national
credit at home and abroad, the President remained aloof while his own
party ran roughshod over his favorite Secretary; and as a result of his silence,
the bank was defeated in the Senate by a single vote, cast by the Vice-
President, George Clinton.

Even the most popular element of the President's policy, his plan for
the Floridas, generated problems for him. A strident quarrel had broken
out in West Florida between Governor Claiborne's forces and American
squatters in the territory, who were prepared to do battle to preserve rights
which they felt they had established. The President saw the need to move
with caution, but he was being pushed farther and faster than he had ex-
pected. Western expansionists in Congress had begun to insist that he seize
East Florida as well as West, regardless of legal claim. "Retrieve the lost
honor of the nation," urged Henry Clay. "British influence" should not be
allowed to deprive the United States of "peaceful possession of the country
[Florida] to which we are fairly entitled." "I am not, sir, in favor of cherish-
ing the passion of conquest" but he thought the United States should
include West Florida, East Florida, "and some of the territories to the north
of us also." The country's approval of this speech of Clay's made Madison
cock an attentive ear, and he adjusted to his policy accordingly. East
Florida, he decided, should be invested before British forces could go to
the aid of the Spaniards there, and early in 1811, he asked Congress for a
secret authorization "to take temporary possession of the said territory "

But it was the Cadore affair itsdf that filled Madison's mind. As
February 2 approached, the date on which non-intercourse against Eng-
land was to go into effect, Federalists in Congress made a major attack on
his position by seeking to repeal Macon's law, an act which would automati-

[288] THE POUNBING SURF OF CRISIS l8o2-l8l2

cally have revoked the proclamation; and they nearly succeeded. Assertions
that he had been the dupe of Napoleon, and had become the vassal of
France, were heard on all sides. His relations with Napoleon were described
by John Randolph as "a bargain which credulity and imbecility enter into
with cunning and power/' while Senator Pickering hinted again at a
secession of the New England states, in the event of war with England.

12. Tightening the Knot

The trend of the long Congressional debate on British policy threatened
what was left of Madison's reputation as a statesman. Retreat, he felt,, would
be fatal, so instead he mustered his forces for attack. The Congress insisted
on proof that the French decrees had been revoked, before they would
declare non-intercourse against England. Something had to be put in their
hands, so the President gave them the only relevant documents that he
had two letters written by French ministers and transmitted by Russell.
The sense of these letters was that the government of France regarded the
Berlin and Milan decrees as temporarily and conditionally suspendedvery
far from the action required by Macon's law. But Madison was caught in a
vicious spiral, and sliding fast. The French letters provided at least a
diversion a new ingredient which went into the Congressional pot, and
caused it to boil again.

This time, Republicans loyal to Madison proposed a bill affirming non-
intercourse with England, in accordance with the President's proclamation.
Instantly the extreme anti-British faction proposed an amendment, under
which trade with England would remain closed until and unless she should
cease to impress American sailors. That this was a non sequitur, and full of
danger, was pointed out, but the Administration, believing that the
amendment would aid the bill's chance of passage, did not oppose it. Late
in February, and only a few days before adjournment, the amended bill
went to the House for a vote. In desperation,, the Federalists attempted
what is said to have been the first filibuster in Congressional history, until
Congress, repeatedly obliged to remain in session until three o'clock in the
morning, became a scene of flaring tempers and challenges to duels. Finally,
however, the Republican majority mastered the opposition by violating
the procedural rules of the House; and at five o'clock in the morning of
February 28 the bill was passed. A day or two later the Senate concurred.
Congress had vindicated the President's position. But in so doing, it had
sharply tightened the knot of A^glo-American relations by making a re-
sumption of trade conditional not only on repeal of the Orders in Council
but on an even more unlikely change in England's impressment policy.

The Congressional session ended with Madison breathing more easily.
The bank had perished, government finances were to|^k^yy ? l<m of

THE CADORE LETTER [ 289 ]

revenues from British trade promised to cut tax revenues by one half; but
Congress had made an honest President out of him,, by accepting the Cadore
letter, and had given him the authorization that he needed in order to
seize the Floridas. If, by lending himself to the Napoleonic strategy, he
had brought the threat of war with England to a new peak, at least, he
thought, the country would soon be able to show some concrete territorial
gains to compensate for its anxiety.

His trouble now was that, having encouraged the expansionists and ultra-
nationalists in Congress by ignoring the sanctions of law in the Cadore
affair and the Florida issue, he could not easily curb them. To many hot-
blooded southerners and westerners especially,. Madison still seemed too
cautious, too timid. There was much talk of a surge southward into Texas,
Mexico, and South America, to support anticipated revolutions against
Spain. The proponents of this plan, most of whom wore Republican cloaks
over imperialistic hearts, wanted a bold leader, and their eyes were on
Monroe. He had just been elected governor of Virginia, and it was widely
agreed that he would be the strongest possible candidate for the party in
the election just ahead. The only other serious contender, De Witt Clinton,
Mayor of New York City, Madison feared much less; for Clinton, although
his impatience for war satisfied the most belligerent, suffered in the eyes of
the south from his northern origin.

The thought of losing his second term was as intolerable to Madison as
it had been to John Adams. He recalled only too clearly the heavy sacrifice
that Adams had made on the altar of peace, when he had refused to
capitulate to the war-minded Federalists who held the power of yea or nay
over his political future. Madison had then applauded the moral courage of
the crotchety New Englander, but he had no intention of following in his
steps. To say that whatever had to be done to hold the presidency, that he
would do, hardly exaggerates the impression that the President had begun
to make on his contemporaries.

13. "The Little Bdt"

During the early months of 181 1> a possible course of action took shape
in Madison's mindaction which would solve not merely one problem, but
two. Gallatin, infuriated by the incessant senatorial goading of Samuel
Smith, had threatened to resign if Robert Smith remained in the Adminis-
tration, on the ground that the Secretary of State was privately sabotaging
the Administration's policy. Smith would have to go, the President hastily
agreed, but the choice of a successor was still open. He waited until
Congress had adjourned, and then, through a friendly senator, inquired of
Monroe whether he would accept the post, if it should be offered to bimu
There was a strong implication that the mov^ if consupHiate4 would put

[290] THE POUNDING SURF OF CRISIS l8o2-l8l2

him in the same position of heir-apparent that Madison had held relative
to Jefferson. Monroe was tempted. Confronted with a choice between the
uncertainty of a fight for the presidency in 1812, and the virtual assurance
of success in 1816, he saw much to gain by acceptance. However, he was
cautious. Would he be given a free reign to pursue his project of peace with
England? Madison gave every promise required of him.

All that remained was to get rid of Robert Smith. The President first
tried to avoid an open breach by offering the Secretary the post of minister
to Russia, Bewildered, Smith was for a time inclined to accept, but when
he awoke to the insulting nature of the proposal, became indignant.
Madison then coldly demanded his resignation on the ground of incompe-
tence. Smith, who had been in Jefferson's Cabinet for eight years, who had
served Madison through three years of strain, and who thought he had
established a harmonious relationship with his chief, was crushed. Following
his resignation, he tried to defend himself against Madison's imputations;
the trouble, he asserted, had come from his efforts to save the nation from
the consequences of the President's pro-French bias. But, as the city of
Washington knew, no grapes are so sour as those in the mouths of men out of
office; and Smith went into the political discard with a badly tarnished
reputation. His experience provided a vivid demonstration of the truism
that Presidents seldom become angry over the inadequacy of their appointees
until after the political pressures which caused them to be appointed have
been removed.

The President's luck seemed to have turned for the better. Early in May,
an action took place at sea which strongly suggested the attack on the
Chesapeake in reverse. This time it was an American frigate, the forty-four-
gun President, which fought a British corvette of far inferior gun power,
the Little Belt. British and American versions of how the incident occurred
differed sharply. But the essential fact was that the powerful President was
under orders to search for the British frigate Guerri&re, which had been
reported near Sandy Hook, seizing American vessels and impressing Ameri-
can sailors. If found, the Guerrtere was to be required to return the im-
pressed men; and few on board the President doubted that this would be
their chance to avenge the Chesapeake. In the distorting dusk of a North
Atlantic evening, the President overtook the Utde Belt and hailed her.
Receiving no answer, her captain believed the British vessel to be the
Guerri&re. As to who fired the first shot, some uncertainty persisted; but the
President was as ready with her broadside as the Leopard had been four
years earlier. After a few minutes, the Little Bdt was out of action, with
thirty-two men killed and wounded. The news sent patriotic America into
raptures and was a political godsend for Madison. The public naturally, if
irrationally, felt that the nation's honor, battered with the Chesapeake, had

THE CADORE LETTER [ 291 ]

been restored by the President. By association,, Madison received credit.
Even the name of the victorious frigate redounded to his advantage.

Thus, in the spring of the year 1811, the President's political position had
been considerably improved. Yet he had not absolutely committed himself
to a fight with England. Federalist anxiety abated when he made it plain
that Congress would not be asked to prepare the country for war. Concrete
evidence of his gain carne from Massachusetts, where an election ousted
Senator Pickering, and showed that even in the heartland of Federalism
the people had rallied behind Madison's diplomatic challenge to England.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Voices of the Frontier

i. Lord Castlereagh Cautions

England's Secretary for War, Lord Castlereagh, was one of those who felt
that a war with the United States would be a useless drain on his country's
strength at a time when she needed all her resources for the death grapple
with Napoleon. Especially he was concerned over the strategic weakness
of Canada, which he considered almost indefensible against a determined
invasion. All his information from Sir James Craig indicated that such an
invasion was the common hope of the Americans. At the time of the
Chesapeake affair, Jefferson himself was known to have seriously considered
an attack on Canada in reprisal. Since then the danger had increased.
Castlereagh inquired of Craig, a famous soldier who had fought in the
American Revolution, as to his plans for defense, in the event of an invasion.
Craig had a definite reply: in order to hold out until reinforcements could
arrive from England, it would be necessary to make use of Indian tribes
against the Americans. "If we do not use them/' wrote Craig, "there cannot
be a moment's doubt that they will be employed against us." With this
Castlereagh agreed, but he was cautious: Craig, he advised, should not go
too fast in his approach to the Indians* lest he inadvertently touch off a
war. "We are to consider not so much their use as allies as their Destructive-
ness if enemies/' was the key sentence of the Secretary's instructions.

Craig thereupon ordered an effort to win over the Indians on the Ameri-
can border "without any particular allusion at the present to any possible
state of hostilities." The British minister in Washington was urged to
reassure the American government that Canada had no desire to foment
trouble between the Indians and the United States. Meanwhile the advance
British post of Fort Amherstberg, near Detroit, became the center of ne-
gotiation with the tribes. On the other side of the border, however, most
men assumed that England was planning to launch an Indian war against
America, as in the days of Little Turtle. The Governor of the recently
established Territory of Indiana, General William Henry Harrison, wrote
to the War Department in Washington to expect war; "The Chippeways,
Ottawa, and part of the Pottawattomies only wait for the signal from the
British Indian agents to commence the attack." From 1807 to 1811, this
was the gist of American opinion all along the frontier.

VOICES OF THE FRONTIER [293]

2. The Shawnee Prophet

Harrison was well aware that much more than British intrigue lay behind
Indian unrest. It was a specific policy of the American Government that
the Indians were seeking to resist. That policy had been expressed by
Thomas Jefferson (who regarded himself as a friend of the Indians) as early
as 1803 in a letter to Harrison remarkable for its frankness: "Push our trad-
ing houses, and be glad to see the good and influential citizens among
them [the Indians] in debt; because we observe that when these debts get
beyond what the individual can pay, they become willing to lop them off
by a cession of lands." Harrison dutifully carried out this policy, primarily
by encouraging traders to sell demoralizing quantities of cheap whisky which
quickly reduced the Indiana tribes to poverty and decay. It became the habit
of chiefs who had fallen heavily into debt to tradesmen to cede tribal
lands, which did not belong to them, to the Indiana territorial government,
which in turn sold them to speculators and reimbursed the tradesmen out
of the proceeds. Eventually, the lands came into the possession of pioneer-
ing farmers. On the American side, no one from the President down seems
to have been aware that this procedure might be considered something less
than virtuous. One treaty after another signed by Harrison and the chiefs
of individual tribes systematically pushed the Indians ever northward and
westward.

The chief of the Shawnees, Tecumseh, determined to try to stem the
white tide by peaceful measures. His method was realistic and practical.
Instead of permitting the Americans to make treaties with single, defense-
less, and incompetent Indian tribes, he proposed to organize all of the tribes
of the region into a f ederation,, inculcate discipline and habits of temperance
among the braves, and insist that future treaties for land be made only
between the American Government and himself, as the spokesman and
leader of a sovereign people. Although this intelligent demand evoked
Harrison's respect, he was unable to grant it. Tension increased. White set-
tlers, recalling the days of Little Turtle, began to fear that if Tecumseh's
federation took shape, they would be massacred. Land speculators and
traders did their best to generate an atmosphere of panic, in the hope of
pushing Harrison into "preventive" military action.

Chief propagandist for Tecumseh among the Indians was his brother,
Tenskwatawa* a fanatical mystic known as "the Prophet" because of sup-
posed clairvoyance. His emotional appeals to old lacml memories and to
common sense rapidly brought one tribe after another into T&ctpaseti's
federation. By 1806 the frontier was a ferment of anxiety. The only stategy
open to Hanisoi\ so far as lie tmild see, was a counteiappeal to the Indtois.
one of the largest and tefc disposed tribes, tin? jDelai^res, 'fete

[294] THE POUNDING SURF OF CRISIS l8o2-l8l2

addressed a letter to them, in which he attempted to expose the emptiness
of the Prophet's pretensions. "My children, tread back the steps you have
taken and endeavor to regain the right road . . . Who is this pretended
Prophet? . . . Demand of him some proofs . . . some miracles . . . If he is
really a prophet, ask him to cause the sun to stand still ... No longer be
imposed on by the arts of an imposter . . ."

This letter, entrusted to an Indian, fell into the hands of the British.
Which imaginative officer among them was versed in astronomy and saw
its possibilities is not recorded, but there seems little doubt that information
went to the Prophet that on June 16, 1806, a total eclipse of the sun would
be visible to his people. He was not a man to question Fate. Soon all the
tribes of the Northwest heard that on the designated day and hour, the
Prophet, as proof of his miraculous powers, would cause the sun to disappear.
When the day came, and the earth was covered by the moon's shadow,
thousands of frenzied Indians put aside any doubts they may have had
and acknowledged the Prophet as a true voice of the Master of Life.

Formal federation of the Seven Nations under Tecumseh followed. Al-
most at the same time, he heard of the attack on the Chesapeake. Observing
the bellicose American reaction, anticipating an early war between England
and the United States, he was determined that the Indian interest should
be protected. Since the Americans would not consent to treat with him as
the spokesman for the Seven Nations, he would turn to the British.

3. Tecumseh Warns

In the spring of 1808, a grand council of the Sfcven Nations was held at
Fort Amherstberg. According to the diary of Colonel William Claus, the
British officer in command there, the American Government was notified
that the purpose of the meeting was simply to encourage trade. But General
Craig himself came from his capital of York to address the chiefs, and to
bring them lavish presents; and after dances and games in his honor and
exchanges of gifts, he spoke for two hours. Stand fast against the Americans,
he urged, entertain no more proposals to sell your lands, but refrain from
hostilities. The chiefs on their part agreed that Americans were "always
telling them lies and taking their country away from them," and that they
must defend themselves. Craig described the success of this meeting for
Castiereagh, adding dryly, "In America, fortunately, the system of gratifying
these people is not much in vogue."

The Amherstberg meeting, as reported in the American press, created a
fresh wave of alarm. One of Kentucky's leading newspapers summarized
what was being said and concluded: 'The prevailing opinion ... is that
there will be a war," in which America would have to deal with "2,000 In-
dians, almost exclusively warriors . . . armed and supported at the expense

VOICES OF THE FRONTIER [ 295 ]

of the British/' Harrison wrote to the War Department that the federation
of the Seven Nations "was produced by British intrigue in anticipation of
war." Reports that Craig had distributed new British rifles among the tribes
especially chafed the American frontiersmen at a tender spot, and their
aggressiveness increased with their irritation. Now more than ever they were
determined to drive the British out of Canada. Craig himself began to have
doubts of the wisdom of his policy, for he wrote to Castlereagh of his
efforts to restrain the tribes, lest they bring war on England. "A war so near
our own frontiers would be very inconvenient . . . and would expose us to
suspicion . . which would sooner or later involve ourselves."

Unlike his fire-breathing brother, the statesmanlike Tecumseh had no
illusions about the outcome of a war fought against America by the Indians
without Canada's aid. The warriors of all of the Seven Nations numbered
fewer than three thousand, while the whites in Ohio alone, where there was
a population of over two hundred thousand,, could if necessary put an army
of ten thousand and more into the field. Tecumseh thought, however, that
he had created a situation in which he might expect British backing if he
were forced to fight. Holding back the tempestuous Prophet, he awaited
the moment when a new crisis between the two white nations would lend
itself to his purposes.

In 1810, he thought that the moment had come. After the Erskine
repudiation, rumors that the British signal for an Indian attack was about to
be given became so general that Harrison sent for Tecumseh, and in a
tense meeting sought to persuade him to a treaty of peace on American
terms. The chief declined, in a reply that amounted to an ultimatum: if the
Americans would restore lands unfairly extracted from the Indians and
thereafter pledge themselves to negotiate for land only with Tecumseh's
federation, he would be their ally; but otherwise he would be against them
in their war with England,

At once Harrison began intensive recruiting for an Indian war but not
a war of defense. One of the strong appeals made for volunteers in the
region was based on a description of fertile knds lying north of the Great
Lakes, and which the enterprising invaders might hope to claim for them-
selves. Men from Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky who might otherwise have
hesitated to leave their occupations and expose their scalps were tempted
by the prospect of broad Canadian fields to be had for the fighting. Greed
was supplemented by the fact that many pioneer farmers, having staked
out what they believed to be ample land for their oeeds^ wre <H$covering
that their crops were too small to be profitable* Largely became of primitive
methods of agriculture and lack of fertifeors, large acreage was lecguucd; I
yield enough produce to support a fajnily, and farms v^ere qux&Ly exhausted
Even, su8t6x$ with moce land than they could cultivate nwf&Bjr ieefcd: tbat

[296] THE POUNDING SURF OF CRISIS l8o2-l8l2

the time would come when they would have to add new tracts to their
domains, or move on. In spite of enormous unpopulated expanses, land
hunger was already prevalent. And the Indiana frontiersmen hesitated to
move west. There were rumors of ferocious Indian tribes in the Illinois
prairies and the plains across the Mississippi; drinking water and timber
for construction were reputed to be scarce there; and the few rivers known
were considered unsuitable for navigation and mill runs. For the typical
speculator or land-poor American of the period, lower Canada was far more
tempting than Illinois.

In the summer of 1811, Harrison had gone so far toward open hostilities
that President Madison found it necessary to caution him. "I have been
particularly instructed by the President," wrote Secretary of War William
Eustis, "to communicate ... his earnest desire that peace may,, if possible,
be preserved with the Indians." This being said, however, Harrison was
allowed to position his forces as he saw fit; and he determined to use them in
the way which, he knew, would best please the angry and ambitious men
of the frontier. In the northern part of Indiana, on the Tippecanoe River, a
strong force of Indian braves under the personal command of the Prophet
had established headquarters and moved southward into new hunting
grounds on land claimed by white speculators. They appeared peacefully
disposed, but the common consensus of the Indiana government was that
they had to be dislodged. President or no President, Harrison was determined
to march on Tippecanoe before the year was out.

4. "No Man . . . Wants Peace More Than F
One of the men most active in urging Harrison on was Henry Clay of
Kentucky. As early as 1810 he was marked by the country's knowing politi-
cians as a man who would make history; he knew it, and was eager to begin.
Using his golden eloquence and his homespun charm with shrewd control,
as tools to a purpose, he rapidly made Washington feel his personal force.
People had no doubt where he stood. He was openly contemptuous of the
diplomatic mind, with its delicate balancing of values and its qualified
judgments. Unlike Madison, unlike Monroe, his position was clearly de-
fined. He was for war, "demanded by the honor and independence of the
country." War with Engjand, war if need be with France, but war. It was as
simple as that. Behind this apparent simplicity, however, was a broad and
sure understanding of the road to political power. He spoke for the frontier,
and the frontier had begun to assert itself in Washington as never before.
The forests and valleys west of the Alleghenies were no longer a mere back-
yard for the nation,, ruled by eastern wealth and policy. Everywhere in the
west towns were springing up, roads were being built, new farm lands were
being opened. The center of population of the country was shifting ever

VOICES OF THE FRONTIER [ 297 ]

westward. The census of 1810 showed that out of a total national popula-
tion of 7,240,000 the recently admitted states of Ohio, Kentucky, and
Tennessee already comprised almost a million, and this did not include the
towns and settlements of the Louisiana and Indiana territories.

The frontier was vigorous and unsophisticated; it thought in simple, direct
terms,, in terms of personal experience; if a man's honor was challenged, he
fought, or he was less than a man; if a nation's honor was challenged, it
ought to fight, whatever the odds, or it was less than a nation. American
seamen had been impressed by British warships? Then fight. The Chesa-
peake had been unfairly attacked? Then fight. But Clay's mind operated on
a considerably more advanced level. Young as he was, he knew the difficulty
of separating the honor of the nation from the advantage of the party and
the ambition of the leader. He inveighed against eastern materialism and
"the low groveling parsimony of the counting room," but for all that it was
the practical interest of the frontier, more than the sentiment of patriotism,
that had determined his position.

A new question had arisen in American politics could the agrarian West,
by linking itself to the South^ dominate the mercantile East? The foreign
policy of the nation would hinge on the answer. The issue was sharply
drawn. Despite the Orders in Council, the export trade of the coastal cities
was centered largely on England and on trade with the Baltic countries
through the British licensing system. Eastern merchants, estimating that
even if only one cargo in three escaped seizure and was sold either in Eng-
land or on the Continent they made enough profit to justify the risk, saw
peaceful compromise of differences with England as essential to their
security. Precisely the opposite influences operated in the West. Most of its
trade had always moved through New Orleans to the West Indies, and to
France and Spain. British blockade and peaceful coercion had wrecked this
commerce. Western exports of grain and lumber had fallen so far since the
embargo that Mississippi River traffic in 1810-11 was said to be smaller than
at any time since the Louisiana Purchase. All over the country there was a
crisis in agriculture, but it was worst west of the Alleghenies.

The frontier had been willing to back Jefferson in a costly experiment*
but it felt no such obligation to Madison. When the repeal of non-
intercourse did not produce a revival of their trade, the frontiersmen coujd
see no way of getting rid of frustrating blockades except by war. That the
war should be against England they fa^d no doubt whatever, for France
was their best potential customer. Aa$ tbej were other fectpis. Jibe
knew little au<J cared less about British oontrilptioiis to America's

it did -kitpw wfa^t an Indian mamfit was- Iflca,
:becn tafcea ,b$r foi&ves with faiives n^d^dp EngJaacl^TP^ entire
, was < ijoj^fteqc^ -too* by ( fhft> f tnwjg

[ 2g8 ] THE FOUNDING SURF OF CRISIS l8o2-l8l2

of New Orleans, which served as its cultural metropolis as well as its port;
and by the dramatic and positive personality of Napoleon. Reports of his
enormous conquests excited and attracted the frontiersmen: this was a
soldier, a leader of men, no shilly-shallying Madison, no high-toned, look-
ing-down-the nose George Canning. The one reason for war against France
to which the West had ever given weight was Napoleon's hold on the long
coveted Floridas, but now even that reason had vanished. With England
acting as self-appointed protector of the disintegrating Spanish empire,, it
was only from her navy, no longer from France, that serious physical
resistance might come to an American drive southward.

Clay and the men whom he led saw a war with England as productive of
nothing but good for the West Their minds were filled with a dream of war
in which the Floridas and Texas would be seized to the south, Canada to
the north; there would be glory; there would be gain; there would be new
states added to the Union under the aegis of the Republican party; and the
political power of the western leaders who gave the country such a victory
would be unshakable. It was in this conviction that Clay, soon after his
appearance in the Senate, took a Cato-like stand from which he never
thereafter deviated. England must be whipped again, as she had been
whipped in the great days of the founding fathers. "No man in the nation
wants peace more than I do, but I prefer the troubled ocean of war . . .
with all its calamities and desolation, to the tranquil and putrescent pool of
ignominious peace/' The discovery that chauvinistic oratory,, introduced by
a little pious lip service to peace, could open the road to power tempted
him to ever more eloquent promises. "The conquest of Canada is in your
power . . . The militia of Kentucky are alone competent to place Montreal
... at your feet." Some senators found his charismatic style distasteful,
and on a number of occasions the raised eyebrows and faint smiles of elder
statesmen when the young man spoke were noted by the press. The at-
mosphere of rebuke around him was a factor in the decision reached by
Clay, early in 1810, that his influence would be greater in the House, with
its "accustomed turbulence" than in "the solemn stillness of the Senate."
Running without opposition, he was elected that summer as Kentucky's
leading representative in the fateful Twelfth Congress of the United
States.

5.

The South, too, was restive and angry, convinced that war in defense of
the national honor was overdue. And in defense, too, of the price of cotton,
Baltimore and Charleston merchants might prefer peace, but the planters
of the interior could not forgive England for screwdriving dictation of the
amounts of cotton that America might ship abroad, and the prices to foe

VOICES OF THE FRONTIER [ 299 ]

paid for it. But the chief appeal of the thought of fighting England lay in the
fact that war was considered a short cut to seizure of the Floridas and Texas,
The South's impatience for these territories was uncontrollable. Cotton
plantings were on the increase; and the wasteful plantation system, using up
land at a tremendous rate, was compelling landless men to look elsewhere for
their livelihood at the same time that the landed were seeking to add to their
properties. Rich or poor, the typical southerner had his heart set on
conquest of the rich Gulf lands. And since feeble Spain, owning these
lands, was under British protection, the fight would have to be with
England. The only question that remained was how to persuade the rest of
the country to declare the war that the South wanted. The answer lay in
Canada; this was the bait with which the northern states were to be tempted
from peace.

There was also a more subtle force, not yet clearly expressed, but which
had begun to generate hatred of England. A few years earlier, Parliament,
in a humanitarian mood, had forbidden Englishmen and English ships to
engage in the slave traffic. The American government had followed with
a similar ban, leaving the market to Yankee smugglers and Spanish traders.
In the three years after 1807, the price of slaves had increased about 25%,
And now it was reported that many Englishmen, influenced by the radical
William Wilberforce, were demanding that slavery itself be abolished
throughout the British empire. Already this pernicious way of thought
had taken root in New England, where too many men had become
outspoken against slavery in America. Foresighted southerners asked
themselves whether, if this doctrine were to prevail in the heavily populated
North, with its financial power, they would be able to remain in the Union.
From this question, it was but a step to the conclusion that to protect their
most sacrosanct institution against northern attacks the prestige and influ-
ence of England in America had to be cut away.

As the West had found a voice in Henry Clay, so the South discovered its
most effective spokesman in young John Calhoun. Tremendously ener-
getic, gifted with a penetrating and logical mind, educated at Yale, married
ta a landed heiress, he, like Clay, was earmarked for success. When, in the
spring of 1811, he was elected to the House of Representatives from South
Carolina, veteran congressmen made way for him, as for Clay of Kentucky.
For election returns from all over the country had confirmed the power of
these two, as the most effective advocates of war with England. The Ameri-
can people were weaiy of uncertainty. Years of eoomic foustations, mari-
time humiliations, Indian massacres, and anti-British preadiiBents bad
finally begun to prevail over commercial caution and the human desire for
peace. Revolt at the polls in the West and South against "sqbmfc^iou men"
ha<l swept away nearly half oi the foteuer manbeis of the Hoqse pf Repre-

[500] THE POUNDING SURF OF CRISIS l8o2-l8l2

sentatives. The men who replaced them were young, hot-blooded Republi-
cans of the Clay-Calhoun stamp, if without their genius "pepperpot
politicians," "buckskin boys," as their enemies called them; "War Hawks/'
as they proudly called themselves.

Madison's problem was thus complicated by a new difficulty: could he
control the War Hawks in the next Congress? Political falconry had never
been his forte. Although his party was solidly in power,, with all but seven
seats in the Senate, and a four to one majority in the House, he sensed that
his own political future was again in jeopardy. With war sentiment rampant,
his re-election to the presidency could be assured only in one of two ways.
Either the British would have to concede enough to make it appear that he
had triumphed without war in which event, he could keep the War Hawks
on leash; or to prevent them from turning on him with claws and beak he
would have to submit to their tugging, and let them soar.

CHAPTER NINE

Scruple and Inhibition

i. "The Americans Grow Warm"

The discouragement of the President grew when the new British minister,
Augustus Foster, arrived in Washington, for although he had all the marks
of a thoroughly qualified diplomat, his instructions were to yield nothing on
any major point of dispute. Only in one matterthe Chesapeake was he
authorized to make an offer of settlement. The reparation proposed was as
meager as it was tardy, but Madison felt that the attack on the Little Belt
would justify him in the country's eyes if he accepted. This hope too was
disappointed. The moment it was known that the settlement had been
reached, Republican papers from Kentucky to New York berated the Ad-
ministration. The Lexington Reporter said the Cheapeake agreement was
"only a sop, to stop the mouth of Congress." "Like restoring a hair after
fracturing the skull/' jeered the Baltimore Whig. The New York Evening
Post saw the President's action as "DECEPTION . . . exactly what we
expected . . . Good God Reparation!!!!"

Unable to reduce the mounting war fever, Madison and Monroe made a
concentrated effort to convince Foster that England's last chance for peace
depended on repeal of the Orders in Council, and their earnestness broke
through his shell of skepticism. After he had been in the country only a
few weeks, his dispatches to Wellesley began to reflect America's actual
state of mind with more accuracy than had been found for a long while in
reports to the British Cabinet. Writing on the Little Belt affair, he de-
scribed the willingness of the American Government "to settle this, with
every other difference, in the most amicable manner, provided his Majesty's
Orders in Council are revoked; otherwise, to make use of it, together with
all other topics of irritation, for the purpose of fomenting a spirit of hatred
toward England, and thereby strengthening their party."

Foster's notes carried conviction and produced an effect. The British
administration, which had lost no previous opportunity to fan popular in-
dignation against America, became suddenly cautious in the matter of the
Little R$lt. ^This affair^ which a little earlier would have toucbecj oJE
hysterical British demands for war, in *8n rm?ed loriisMiigly lifeie
notice in England's piW* Oae newspaper complained that the government:
had "kupckled dom to the Yankees" to tlie Che$dp0oit@ settoaeut; Matter
a large redress f^r ffee Little JfMf; but the pnevaQjvg tone -was

[ JO2 ] THE POUNDING SURF OF CRISIS l8o2-l8l2

surprisingly calm. When the government proposed to send a special envoy
to America to negotiate reparation, the entire incident quickly dropped out
of notice.

While the serious Foster was generating concern in the British Govern-
ment, the clever and effervescent French minister, Srurier, was having the
opposite effect on Napoleon. In the summer of 1811 he enthusiastically
reported to Paris that "the Americans grow warm very slowly, but at last
they are heated; and at any moment the least spark can light up a conflagra-
tion from the Gulf of Mexico to Canada/' Madison's indignation at
Napoleon's double-dealing made little impression on S6rurier. He reported
it to Paris merely as an interesting sidelight on the situation. "The revoca-
tion of the Decrees of Milan and Berlin has become a personal affair with
Mr. Madison/' But that any change was required in the Emperor's disposi-
tion toward the United States, he never even remotely suggested.

2. Monroe Thinks Again

Napoleon could only conclude that his cynical American policy was
succeeding, and that it should be maintained at full strength. In this,, as
generally in his estimates of Madison's attitudes, he was right. The Presi-
dent's anger at France, which he expressed to S6rarier and often paraded
in his cabinet, was not deeply felt. While his official notes to Joel Barlow in
Paris fulminated against the Emperor's disregard of pledges given, and even
warned of hostile conditions between France and America," his private
communications showed that where Napoleon was concerned all could be
forgiven. A letter to Jefferson, written in March 1811, indicates his real
attitude: it was difficult* he said "to understand the meaning of Bonaparte
toward us. There is little doubt that his want of money and ignorance of
commerce have had a material influence ... In all this his folly is obvi-
ous . . /' To excuse Napoleon's aggressions and deceptions on the ground
of "ignorance" anel "folly" was sufficiently grotesque, but Madison went
farther in his misreading of Napoleon's mind. The Emperors failure to
cany out the Cadore "agreement," he thought, was due to his lack of faith
in America's promise to break off intercourse with Eaglandl Like Jefferson
before him, the President was disposed to tolerate from France offenses
which, coming from the British, brought out his righteous wrath. To say
that he had at this stage decided on war, however, would be an exaggeration.
So vigorous a decision was beyond Min. His letters to Jefferson and others
give the impression of a man confused, always coming from some place,
but never going anywhere. It was as if the abrasive events of his presidency
had rubbed away his Jeffersonian idealism and left him banM of teswrees
for peace. He seems to have regarded himself as am Aniericap Sisyphus

SCRUPLE AND INHIBITION [ 33 1

rolling the stone of peace upward but knowing all the time that it would
not reach the top. In this spirit, he had allowed American policy to be
sapped of its power of initiative; it could only totter as pushed. Jefferson's
"peaceful coercion" had given way to Madison's dazed opportunism.

The President's pro-French bias was generally recognized, and it put
James Monroe in an annoying position. On him fell the requirement to
reproach S6rurier for Napoleon's defaults, and to demand that his promises
be fulfilled. But Srurier knew perfectly well, and Monroe knew that he
knew, that the American people had ceased to worry very much about the
Cadore letter, and that there was nothing that the President could do about
it. To compound his embarrassment, the Secretary of State was forced to
tell Foster the precisely opposite story: that England had no reason to delay
the repeal of her orders, for the French decrees were no longer in effect
Monroe lacked zest for this empty little game. His hope of working out a
diplomatic compromise with England,, he now saw, was altogether illusory,
so long as he lacked presidential support. Madison's espousal of the new
Non-Intercourse Act^ against England had created a situation that no
Secretary of State could alter. The road to peace was now blocked not
merely by a diplomatic muddle, but by a law which pushed diplomacy to
the sidelines which required a virtual British surrender, on impressment
as well as on the Orders in Council, before trade could be resumed.

3. "After This, Witt Any Doubt?"

The President, motivated largely by his desire to please the hotspurs, had
convened Congress one month earlier than usual. When the House assem-
bled on November 4, 1811, he became instantly aware that the prevailing
wind was from the West and no mere breeze, but a gale. The administra-
tion had supposed that one of the veteran Republicans of the House would
be made Speaker, but on the first ballot, in defiance of all precedent, the
freshman representative, Clay of Kentucky, was elected to the post by a
tremendous majority. At that moment the young man became the second
most powerful political figure in the Upited States. As he sat in th^e Speaker's
chair on the rostrum, reporters observed that his unofficial title, CWef of
the War Hawks, was fittingly symbolized by the enormous stone eagle* with
outspread wings and claws, high above his head in the chamber. With re-
markable skill Clay threw himself into the task of reorganizing the House
committees in the same image. Calhocra was put OB the po?wafel Foreign
Affairs Committee^ ^rhere he sotak became acting dhainonaa. They coujd
see no obstacle oa their road to war. Using his g^vd with a f oy ce ancj TOStey
tbsat inhibited opposition, day was able to dominate the Howe ia spite of
fretfukess at his steam-roller tactics* "The boy <lictate/ r Joftft Randolph

[ 304 ] THE FOUNDING SURF OF CRISIS l8o2-l8l2

called him. "Mark my words, sir/' he told a friend, "we shall have war before
the end of the session."

The President's message to the Congress, read on November 5 seemed
deliberately to play into Clay's hands. Unblushingly, Madison maintained
the fiction that France had revoked her objectionable decrees, although
he admitted that no proof had yet been given "of an intention to repair the
other wrongs done to the United States." Toward England, however, he
showed himself openly hostile, blaming the troubles between her and
the United States solely on British refusal to repeal the Orders in Council.
He went on to invitebut indirectly, always indirectly a declaration of war
by the Congress. The period had arrived, he said,, "for more ample
provisions" to maintain the nation's rights. "Congress will feel the duty of
putting the United States into an armor and an attitude demanded by the
crisis, and corresponding with the national spirit and expectation."

One hope of peace, and only one, was implicitly conveyed by the Presi-
dent. It was observed that he spoke not a word about impressment. For
Augustus Foster this was a significant omission. Was the President saying
that if the Orders in Council were repealed, war might be avoided even if
the impressment issue were not immediately settled? His letter on this point
was noted in Whitehall. But for the rest, Madison's message was as aggressive
against England as his nature permitted.

If the War Hawks needed anything more, it was some new shedding of
American blood for which the British could be held accountable, and even
this was not denied them. A week after Congress had convened,, news came
from Indiana of the expected fight at Tippecanoe. It was hardly more than
a frontier skirmish between a force of about five hundred Indians, and an
American "army" of nine hundred, led by General Harrison; and later ac-
counts disclosed that the victory of the Americans was dubious, Harrison's
generalship had been mediocre, and that the battle had resulted largely
from his provocative actions. At the time, however, all that mattered was
that scores of Americans, including some Kentucky volunteers, had been
killed and wounded by Indians armed with new British rifles and knives.
The resulting outcry in the nation released many in Congress from their
last Jeffersonian scruples. Here, surely, was provocation enough to put an
end, once and for all, to passive resistance. "British-Savage War! The Blow
Is Struck!" The frontier press shrieked its rage and blood lust. "The war
on the Wabash is purely British," asserted Kentuck/s editors. Tennessee,,
through the mouth of the commander of ha militia, Andrew Jackson,
roared that "the blood of our murdered heroes must be revenged!" Pennsyl-
vania's leading newspaper asked, "After this, will any doubt? . . . Will
Congress treat the citizens of the Western Country as they have treated the
seamen of the United States?"

SCRUPLE AHD INHIBITION [ 305 ]

4. The Inward Search

Underneath all the furore, however, there seemed to be some hidden
inhibitions at work in the government. The Foreign Affairs Committee of
the House was surprisingly dilatory in its deliberations. Impatiently the
House waited, and at last the committee reported a resolution "in favor of
actual war,, at a given period/' Fifty thousand volunteers were to be
recruited, merchantmen were to be armed, warships refitted for active serv-
ice, privateers encouraged. "It is the sacred duty of Congress," solemnly the
committee gave assurance, "to call forth the patriotism and resources of the
country ... to procure that redress which has been sought for by justice,
by remonstrance and by forbearance in vain."

The war, then, was to be for redress? This was not quite satisfactory to
some congressmen. Searching their consciences,, they could not fail to see
that if the war was to be waged on this ground, it should be against France,
as much as against England. As the House proceeded to debate the war
bill, other reasons for fighting were set forth. The veteran Macon of Carolina
preferred to think that the country was about to fight for justice "for the
right to export our native produce." A prominent War Hawk encouraged
dubious legislators by reminding them that the United States in war could
destroy British fisheries and British West Indian trade, while conquering
Canada, and that all this would not, after all, cost very much. "By carrying
on such a war at the public expense on land, and individual enterprise at
sea,, we should be able in a short time to remunerate ourselves ten-fold for
all the spoli^ions she [England] has committed against our commerce."
Here was a solid, if tough, reason for sending fellow Americans into battle*
but more sensitive congressmen were somewhat dismayed by so much
frank materialism, A young representative from Tennessee, a Jeffersonian
known for his integrity, Judge Felix Grandy, whose former stand against
war was well known, searched his heart for the benefit of the House. War
was always a danger to liberty they were "about to ascertain by actual
experiment how far out republican institutions are calculated to stand the
shock of war." He was not entirely sure that the nation could subsequently
"again assume our peaceful attitude." If it had been wrong, as Jeffersonians
held, to go to war in 1799 against France, was it right to figjit England
in 1812? Despite all this, Grandy thought that perhaps the Republican
party would be justified in reversing its policy, in order to "resist by force
the attempt ... to subject our maritime rights to the arbitrary and capri-
cious rule of her [England's] will" But here, too, he had to admit a diffi-
culty. If Orders in Council and impressment, if evea the Chesapeake
incident, had not been considered sufficient reason for war in 1807, what
had happened in five years to make them causes now? Gnrndy avoided

[ 306] THE POUNDING SXIRF OF CRISIS l8o2-~l8l2

having to answer the embarrassing question by falling back hurriedly on the
fight at Tippecanoe to account for his change of mind The war, he thought,
had "already begun." By this time, however, Tippecanoe was some weeks
in the past, and there was no evidence, nor ever would be, that the British
were responsible for the battle. More and more the attack on Harrison's
force appeared as a desperate Indian attempt to stop the American invasion
of tribal lands.

As the Congressional debate went on, the weakness of the moral position
of the War Hawks became the center of argument. Soon they found it
necessary to fall back on the unanswerable mystique of imperialism.
Canada and the Floridas all North America had to become part of the
United States it was so written in the stars the national honor could be
satisfied with nothing less. Declamations to this effect were made so fre-
quently as to produce profound irritation among thoughtful congressmen.
To retort, there arose on the floor of the House John Randolph, the
"madcap Virginian/ 7 long a lone wolf of the Republican party, shrill, bare-
toothed, many thought a little deranged, but enormously effective in
polemic. With satire, jeers, and sneers at those who invoked honor without
understanding the meaning of the word^ he bore down on the War Hawks'
real purpose. The war legislation he saw simply as "a scuffle and scramble
for plunder" by agrarian interests. For the splashing patriotism of the West
he had nothing but contempt. It was but a cover, he thought, for a land-
grab. "Ever since the report of the Committee on Foreign Relations came
into the House, we have heard but one word like the whippoorwill, but
one monotonous tone Canada, Canada, Canada!" Let the q^tion beware,
he warned, for the conquest of Canada would give anti-slavery elements a
new accession of strength which in the end would force the South to secede.

Southerners,, shaken by Randolph, were reassured by young John
Calhoun. "The real spirit of union," he confidently asserted, would be in-
creased, not diminished by war. To those who hesitated to fight England
lest they give economic advantage to special interests, Calhoun flatly
declared that "protection and patriotism are reciprocal/' that it was the
duty of the nation "to protect every citizen in the lawful pursuit of his
business." Calhoun was effective, but the uneasiness of the House grew as
it groped to explain its own bellicosity. One congressman justified his posi-
tion by asserting that he was against war, but for the war legislation; and as
legislators have done since the days of ancient Rome, he quoted the hoary
fallacy that the best way to prevent war is to prepare for it. Finally^ voices
were raised to beg that the debate be shortened. Was it not absurd, one
congressman asked, to put the enemy on notice of the country's intentions
by open discussion of what should have been a secret pko? England was
being given far too much opportunity to reinforce Canada.

SCRUPLE AND INHIBITION [ 307 ]

In time, the Congress grew tired of talking and voted on the so-called
war resolutions, which were carried by huge majorities in the House and
Senate. It was noted that a number of prominent Federalists crossed party
lines to vote with the War Hawks. Their motive, however, was peculiarly
their own. With their eyes on the election of 1812, Federalist leaders were
now willing to gamble on the chance of a short, undecisive, unpopular war
in order to recapture the government. In dispatches to Wellesley,. Augustus
Foster reported that some Federalists in Congress "make no scruple of tell-
ing me that they mean to give their votes for war . . . that war will turn
out the Administration, and they will have their own way, and make a solid
peace with Great Britain." The Federalists, he said again, were "pushing for
measures so decisive as to leave him [Madison] no retreat. It has been told
me in confidence . . . that if the Orders in Council are not revoked he must
eventually be ruined in the opinion of the nation." Therefore, urged the
Federalists, let England by all means retain her orders until after the elec-
tion. Foster himself found this line of reasoning unsatisfactory. He reiterated
to Wellesley that England would have to revoke the orders if war was to
be prevented.

Many Americans believed that the vote on the resolutions actually meant
war. It did not dawn on the people for some time that Congress had done
no more than to instruct itself to prepare for war by appropriate legislation,
which now had to be created and passed. Nevertheless, the President was
pleased to have Congress thus take the initiative, and relieve him of
responsibility. He was encouraged, too, by word that Thomas Jefferson him-
self had publicly spoken for war out of his retirement. "We are to have
war, then? I believe so, and that it is necessary . . . War or abject submis-
sion are the only alternatives left to us. I am forced from my hobby, peace/'

5. A Talk on New Year's Day

At the year's end, not many people outside the administration realized
how difficult it was for Madison to give open aid to the War Hawks. The
fact was that he could see no way to ask outright for war on England unless
he was willing also to urge war on France. Reports had arrived telling of
heavy depredations by Napoleon against American ships, not only in the
ports of Europe, but on the high seas. The Emperor had managed to get
a squadron of French warships past the English fleet and into the Baltic.
There they had systematically captured a large number of American
merchantmen engaged in trade with Russia. Other American ships trading
with England had been burned and sunk. "His Majesty loves the Ameri-
cans," the Cadore letter had said: the contrast between word and deed
would make Madison more than ever seem the dupe of France, if under
these conditions he were to seek a declaration of war on England. One of

[ 308] THE FOUNDING SURF OF CRISIS l8o2-l8l2

the President's strongest Congressional supporters, Nathaniel Macon,
wrote in a private letter that "the Devil himself could not tell which
government, England or France, is the more wicked."

Madison's internal discomfort was further increased by knowledge, not
yet given to the American people, that from the beginning of 1807 to the
end of 1811,, French seizures of American ships had substantially exceeded
those of England. The most popular of New York's newspapers, the
Evening Post, never ceased to remind its readers that the French as well as
the British had mistreated American sailors, who had been "robbed and
manacled . . . and marched without shoes to their feet or clothing on their
backs in the most inclement weather some hundreds of miles; lashed along
the highway like slaves, treated with every possible indignity, and then im-
mured in the infernal dungeons of Arras or Verdun." A Massachusetts
rhymester caught the weakness of the administration's position in a caustic
verse:

If England look askance, we boil with rage;
And blood, blood only can the wound assuage;
Yet whipt, robbed, kicked and spit upon by Fiance,
We treat her with the greater complaisance.

This was the psychological background against which, on New Year's Eve,
the President read a report come from Savannah that sailors off French
privateersmen had engaged in a fight with American sailors. Knives had
been drawn and men killed on both sides; after which a mob had set fire
to the French ships and destroyed them. That the French minister,
S6rurier would cry out was a foregone conclusion. An urgent request from
him for a meeting with the President was promptly granted, and on New
Year's Day he called at the Executive Mansion, vigorously protested the
Savannah incident, and demanded reparation. This was a little too much
even for the mild Madison. He retorted (as S6rurier wrote to Paris) that
"it was not less distressing to learn what was passing every day in the Baltic,"
and accused the French Government of "hostilities as pronounced as were
those of England/'

The same day, S&rurier was privately given to understand by Monroe
that until the French Government modified its policy, the administration
could not press Congress for a declaration of war on England, and he hastily
sent a report of this conversation to Napoleon.

6. And Still No War

As time moved into January 1812, and the Congress straggled to create
and pay for a suitable army and navy, the President's failure to urge them
on made many wonder. He was accused of wishing to see Congress take full

SCRUPLE AND INHIBITION [ 309 ]

responsibility, so that if the war should prove unpopular, he himself would
not be too deeply committed when he had to go before the voters in the
autumn. Representatives and senators fumed and boggled at the unpleasant
tasks before them. Lacking presidential leadership, they were unable all
through January to arrive at a suitable plan for financing the war. Only
with great difficulty was Congress able to squeeze out of itself even a law
authorizing the President to accept volunteers for war service. Meanwhile,,
a letter from Gallatin told the House that the financing of war would
require sharp increases in taxation on whisky, on salt and other commodities,
and a rise in duties on imports. Here was news sure to dampen the patriotic
fervor of many congressmen's constituents. The West resented the tax on
whisky, the South thought the tax on salt unjustified, the East was mortified
by Gallatin's proposed new tariffs. His failure to say all this at the beginning
of the session was sharply criticized, and a protracted debate on war finances
followed. By February,, so much of the war spirit had oozed away that a
bill proposing to build thirty-two new warships at a cost of $7,500,000 was
defeated in the House. The majority of the Congress were ready to vote for
a declaration of war, if the President had asked for one; but in four months
they had not voted for a single practical measure designed to win the war
if it should come.

The country, sensing the indecision in Washington, began to think that
the war cloud was lifting. On February 28, 1812, John Jacob Astor^ who was
in close touch with Gallatin, wrote with glee and in his own inimitable
orthography to a Canadian correspondent that "We are happy in the hope
of Peace & have not the smalest idia of a war with england."

CHAPTER TEN"

The Crillon, Comedy

i. The Gentleman from Paris

In the middle of January 1812, there appeared in Washington a handsome
Frenchman who bore the distinguished title of Count Edward de Crillon,
whose manner, decorations, and letters of introduction would have been
enough to assure a good reception even to a man without ancient and noble
lineage. He called first on Serurier,, and after presenting his credentials,
entranced the minister with a story so remarkable, and of such large im-
plications for the American administration, that S6rurier unhesitatingly
gave him an introduction to Monroe. The Secretary of State was similarly
impressed. Within a few days of his arrival, Crillon was seated in Madison's
office, enthralling the President.

Some years earlier, Crillon said, he had unfortunately incurred the
Emperor's displeasure, and had thought it best to leave France. England
had received him,, not as a traitor to France, but simply as a private gentle-
man and aristocrat, down on his luck; and in London, he had met a young
Irishman, Captain John Henry. This was the man whom the Governor
General of Canada, Sir James Craig, had a few years earlier sent to Boston
as a secret agent. In that capacity, Henry had come into the possession of
information in the form of letters showing the readiness of prominent
Federalists to side with England in the event of war. It seemed to him
that in return for his patriotic service the British government ought to pay
him more than Craig had paid, and he was able to obtain some encour-
agement in this direction from Francis Jackson. In 1810, therefore, he
traveled to England to solicit a just reward, which he estimated at
no less than 32,000, but after more than a year his hopes were still unful-
filled. Whitehall had its own methods for such cases; Henry was shuttled
from office to dusty office in a dreary passage of time,, until finally the light
dawned. He then quitted England in a bad humor and took ship for Boston.

Through a coincidence, so Crillon said, he himself had independently
decided to visit the United States, and elected to travel on the Boston
packet. During the long voyage the two unfortunates became close friends
and confided in each other. The young Englishman felt that he had been
badly treated by England a country which he had never been taught to
love and would be justified in disposing of his letters to a more apprecia-
tive buyerfor example to the government of the United States. He could

THE CRILLON COMEDY [ 311 ]

not be sure, however, how far the American Government would trust a
confessed British agent or how generously it would deal with him. Here
Crillon had a suggestion. His own connections were of the best; he at least
would be assured of a hearing. It would be his pleasure to serve his new
friend by approaching the French minister, Serurier, who,, he felt sure,
would receive him in spite of his slight contretemps with the Emperor. And
he had still another suggestion. Henry was a man of refinement, of civilized
tastes, of sensibility. Upon being rewarded by the American Government,
he could not very well stay in the United States, where his letters if pub-
lished would incur the enmity of prominent citizens. Nor could he go back
to England. Why not, then, France, and a life of ease and pleasure?
Crillion could solve this problem also. He himself, while short of ready cash,
was agreeably rich in land and chlteaux. One of his estates, at St. Martial
near the Spanish border, yielded a fine income, but he himself now had
little benefit from it Well, then? Henry was excited by the prospect of life
among the French noblesse and they made a written covenant: if, following
Crillon's efforts,, Henry was suitably rewarded by the American government,
he would pay the sum of $50,000 to Crillon out of the proceeds, in return
for title to St. Martial. A fair purchase price for the letters, Crillon agreed,
would be $125,000.

2. The John Henry Papers

President Madison, impressed by Crillon's frank story and charmed by
his personality, asked his wife to give a dinner for him,, and for several weeks
thereafter the young Frenchman was lionized by Washington hostesses.
Serurier, seeing in him a valuable instrument for French policy, gave him
financial assistance and spoke enthusiastically of his ''conduct and language"
in letters to the French foreign office. Meanwhile, a messenger was sent to
Henry in Boston, with instructions to bring him to the President under
conditions of absolute secrecy.

Early in February, Madison held in his hands the allegedly explosive
letters. He must have felt some disappointment. Most of them were copies
or paraphrases of letters which Henry himself had written two years earlier
to Sir James Craig,, telling of his talks with prominent New England
Federalists. To be sure, Henry drew some controversial conclusions from
these talks, such as that America's chances of avoiding defeat by England
were negligible. "A war/' he insisted to Craig, "would produce an incurable
alienation of the eastern states, and bring the whole country in subordina-
tion to the interests of England." But such statements, however disturbing,
were not actual evidence of Federalist treason. One document struck the
President as perhaps more useful than the others Henry's original in-
structions from Sir James Craig. Considered in conjunction with Henry's

[312] THE POUNDING SURF OF CRISIS l8o2-l8l2

letters, it could be regarded as evidence that the British Government had
sought to foment dissension and secession in the United States by the use
of a secret agent.

The President's mind, at that moment, was focused on two practical
objectives: to push Congress into adopting Gallatin's wartime tax measures,
and to aid the Republican-Democrats in the spring elections for the state
legislatures. The John Henry papers might not be in themselves significant,
but shrewdly presented, they could advance the interest of the President
and his party. The question remained,, how much were the papers worth
to the Treasury of the United States? The $125,000 asked by Henry was
out of the question. How much then? Monroe, who handled the monetary
transaction, offered $50,000, which he could find in a discretionary fund
which Congress had placed at the President's disposal to deal with unfore-
seen contingencies in foreign affairs. The figure left Henry a little blue; it
was no more than would pay for the estate at St. Martial. After talking with
Crillon, however, he decided to accept; for the revenues from St. Martial,,
he learned, would repay him in a year or two. Crillon solved the problem
of immediate funds for him by providing drafts on a friend in Paris who
served as his banker. The deal was struck; on February 10, 1812, Monroe
gave the money to Crillon, who then handed to Henry the title deeds to the
estate at St. Martial.

From the President's standpoint, it was desirable to have Henry out of
the country and on his way to France before the great day of the exposure.
He had determined on a device which he felt certain would make publica-
tion of the letters doubly effective. Recalling vividly the effect produced by
John Adams when he substituted the letters X, Y, and Z for the names of
Talleyrand's agents, Madison permitted Henry to keep the names of his
Federalist friends out of the letters, and to substitute rows of enigmatic
asterisks. The actual names would be the President's secret, not to be shared
with Congress; and hence a dark threat over the heads of the Essex Junto.

Henry was rushed from Washington to New York, and put on board an
American warship to insure his safe arrival in France. Joyously,, S^rurier
reported to the Foreign Ministry in Paris that the great day was about to
dawn. "The Administration has decided to publish Henry's documents . .
Much is expected of this exposd The conduct of M. Crillon since his arrival
here has never ceased to be consistent and thoroughly French ... I hope
that the service he has just rendered . . . will earn him the indulgence of
the Emperor and the return of his favor." To a request from Monroe that
nothing be said of the way in which the President had obtained the letters,
S6rurier readily agreed.

As Adams had sent the XYZ papers to Congress, so now did Madison with
the John Henry papers. A covering letter charged England with ^fomenting

THE CRILLON COMEDY [ 313 ]

disaffection to the constituted authorities of the nation/' and of plotting
to destroy the union, "forming the eastern part thereof into a political con-
nection with Great Britain." For all his partisan purpose, however, the
President did not forget his duties as statesman. A curt note went to
Augustus Foster, saying that he hoped publication of the Henry letters
might "produce a good effect by bringing matters in a more peremptory
manner before his Majesty's government."

The first result of the John Henry disclosure was all that the President
had hoped for. The Republican press instantly beat drums and sounded
trumpets. "The Plot to Dismember the Union" was a typical headline;
England was accused of trying to blast "the holy bond" of American unity.
Henry Clay expressed his delight. The letters, he felt, would "accelerate a
declaration of war." Macon said that he was "struck with horror" and called
for war without delay. Reporters noted that when the letters were read to
the House, many a New England Federalist "began to kick and squirm"
"looked pale" "wiped away great drops of sweat."

The John Henry papers were on everyone's tongue. "Henryism" became
the derisive word to describe pro-British leanings. Overnight, however,
Federalist panic gave way to sober reflection. What actual proof had the
President offered of the party's involvement? The letters were not written
to Henry, after all, but only by him; and they were not originals, merely
copies or paraphrases. In fact, close reading made it possible to say that
the papers,, instead of implicating New England Federalists in a treasona-
ble intrigue, actually exonerated them of complicity. For it was plain from
Henry's statements that his unnamed informants had never realized that
he was a British agent, and so could hardly have conspired with him. As for
the proof that the British Government employed secret agents and provoca-
teurs, was this surprising, or justification for war? At that very time, as the
Congress knew, raiders subsidized by the administration were in East
Florida, ostensibly to aid a mythical revolution against the Spanish govern-
ment there. Was the President less culpable, critics asked,, than Sir James
Craig? The question, which was repeated again and again, became so em-
barrassing to Madison that he had finally to protect himself against it. With
obvious discomfort Monroe disavowed the Florida raiders. Their leader,
General Matthews, was told that he had "mistaken the Presidents wishes";
and his loud protests were ignored.

Federalist leaders quickly decided that the President, m publishing the
Henry papers, had harmed them less than he had himself. When they de-
manded a Congressional investigation* his party did not feel safe in refusing
it; and in consequence the administration was soon badgered with more
awkward questions, How had the President dared to spend $50,000 of the
taxpayers' money for papers which were merely an unsupported libel on a

[314] THE POUNDING SXJKF OF CRISIS l8o2-l8l2

political party? How had he got them? Who had received the money?
Madison's insistence that the letters must speak for themselves satisfied no
one. Even Republicans felt that if the President knew more than he was
telling, having gone so far, he was obliged to share the rest of his information
with the people. A Congressional resolution was passed, calling on him to
reveal the names of Americans who had conspired with Craig; and Monroe
had to reply that the administration did not have such information. Then,
Federalists retorted, what purpose were the letters supposed to serve? Merely
that of partisan politics?

The star witness called by the investigating committee was the Count de
Crillon himself. Always correct, dignified, charming, and before an audience
filled with feminine admirers, the Count told his story with engaging frank-
ness, withholding only S6rarier's part in the affair. Of the letters themselves,
he professed ignorance. A few days later, his prestige undamaged, he took
ship for France with the avowed intention of begging Napoleon's forgive-
ness and the right to serve in the advance guard of the army then being
mobilized for the war with Russia. In his pocket were warm letters of recom-
mendation from Monroe to Barlow, and from S6rurier to the Emperor.

3. "At What a Moment!"

For about two weeks, the President remained hopeful that in spite of
difficulties the Henry papers had strengthened his position. Then on March
23, news came that French warships had seized and burned two American
merchantmen loaded with grain, which they had been licensed to carry to
British troops in Spain. Overnight the Henry affair was dropped by the
press. So the President still believed that the French decrees had been
repealed? Republicans as well as Federalists vented their fury at Napoleon,
and as the tide of public opinion turned, Madison found himself once more
the butt of attack as a mere dupe and errand boy for the Emperor. Monroe
sent in haste for S6rurier, and spoke to him in words of astonishing frank-
ness, which the French minister reported to Paris:

"Well, sir, it is evident that we are to receive nothing but outrages from
France! And at what a moment! At the very instant when we were going to
war against her enemies . . . We have made use of Henry's letters to uplift
the nation and the Congress . . . within a week we were going to propose
. . . the declaration of war ... It is at such a moment that your frigates
burn our ships, destroy all our work^ and put the Administration in the most
false and terrible position in which a government can find itself."

Instantly Augustus Foster took advantage of the situation by demanding,
once again to see the official French document which revoked the Napo-
leonic decrees, and which alone could justify the American demand for
repeal of the Orders in Council. Monroe and Madison squirmed. The only

THE CRUXON COMEDY [ 315 ]

reply they could make was that "the case of the two American ships which
were burned could not be said to come under the Berlin and Milan decrees."
It was a defense so feeble and meretricious that even the administration's
friends in Congress could not stomach it, and sat in silence under the
Federalist attack.

So much strategy, so little result! The war with England once more
seemed remote.

4. Thirty, Sixty or Ninety Days

Having exhausted his own resources, the President listened to the opinions
of Henry Clay. It was Clay's view that the country would never prepare
adequately until it found itself at war. Declare war first, prepare later,, he
advised. But before the declaration, let an embargo be placed on all ship-
ping for thirty days. American merchantmen would thus be off the high seas
and protected from seizure when war began. The President agreed in
principle, but characteristically thought thirty days too short a time. As a
measure of precaution, the embargo ought to be laid for sixty days, he sug-
gested: the additional month would provide greater flexibility for the
administration. Clay, while not pleased, made no serious protest; to him
the important fact was that at last Madison had come to a decision. That
night, March 15,, the Kentuckian bluntly told Senator James Bayard of
Delaware that there would be war.

The new measure was proposed in a secret message to Congress and de-
bated behind closed doors, on April i, 1812. Although few opposed the idea
of an embargo, the question of its duration became a matter of hot debate.
Prominent congressmen openly stated their belief that England should be
given a chance to react to the embargo before war was declared. It seemed
not impossible that England might yet make concessions in order to avoid
the stoppage of American grain shipments to the British army in Spain. Her
economic condition, by all reports, was worsening, and her political attitude
softening. George III had at last been declared insane, and his son, the
Prince Regent, the former friend of Charles Fox, was steeped in Whig ideas,
one of them the desirability of peace with America. At the opening of
Parliament in the preceding January, American newspapers reported, the
Prince had been extremely temperate in his remarks about the United States.
Some congressmen even saw hope in the fact that Lord Wellesley had re-
signed as Foreign Minister, and his place had been given to Castlereagh,
who was comparatively well-regarded in America,, if for no other reason than
because he had fought a dud with Canning and had wounded him slightly.
From all this, moderates in the Congress reasoned that time was woddng for
peace, and that its chances would improve if only the War Hawks were not
allowed to carry all before them. Hearkening to this argument; Congress

[ 316 ] THE POUNDING SURF OF CRISIS l8o2-l8l2

concluded that the embargo should remain in force not for sixty, but for
ninety days. In the same spirit, a number of representatives began to press
for an early adjournment which would make a declaration of war impossible
until Congress reconvened in special session. The narrow margin by which
this move was blocked by Clay revealed the declining influence of the War
Hawks.

5. Madison Agonistes

Suddenly everything was going wrong for the President The Massachu-
setts election resulted in a worrying Federalist victory: so much for the
effect of the John Henry letters. New York elected a Federalist Assembly.
There was open talk that either Mayor De Witt Clinton of New York or
Monroe might replace Madison as his party's nominee in the autumn.
Ardent patriots in the South were turning against him, for with his disa-
vowal of General Matthews his scheme to subsidize an American-led
"revolution" in East Florida had collapsed. As for the embargo, public dis-
approval of it was growing from day to day. Port conditions had begun to
resemble those of 1807. Finances too were a constant worry. An attempt by
Gallatin to float a national loan in order to finance the expected war failed
miserably when the banks of leading states refused co-operation. Out of
$11,000,000 of "government stock" offered, only $6,000,000 was taken.

What had happened to the war fever? S6rurier gloomily reported to Paris
in May that "this cooling of the national pulse . . . adds to its [the ad-
ministration's] embarrassment and hesitation/' To discourage the French
minister further, the countiy learned that Madison had been unable to
obtain any further information on the Berlin and Milan decrees from the
French government. "On this news," he reported to Paris, "the furious
declamations of the Federalists, of the commercial interests, and of the
numerous friends of England were redoubled; the Republicans, deceived
in their hopes, joined in the outcry . . . nothing was heard but a general
ciy for war against France and England at once."

The nadir of the administration's prestige was reached when a dispatch
arrived from Joel Barlow that gave everyone in Washington, outside of the
President's immediate cirde, the best laugh of the decade. The Count de
Crillon, said Barlow^ was a fraud. He was not a member of the famous
Crillon family. No one had ever heard of him or of the alleged estate of St.
Martial. The person on whom he had drawn funds in Henry's behalf had
long been dead. S&urier informed Paris that "the President . . . and all
the secretaries . . . are a little ashamed of the eagerness shown him [Crillon]
and all the money they gave him ... On my part ... I have little to
regret ... I have constantly refused to connect myself with his affairs . . .
The papers have been published and have produced an effect injurious to

THE CRILLON COMEDY [ 317 ]

England without ... a single denier from the Imperial treasury/' What
Serurier did not know was that Crillon was an agent of Fouche, head of
Napoleon's secret police.

As the Crillon comedy came to its end, the Federalists pressed their
advantage. Anti-war proposals began to emanate from the Congress. The
President was urged to appoint a strong minister to England, where there
had been no qualified American envoy for a year. Petitions for the repeal
of the embargo were circulated. John Randolph shook even the War Hawks
by a speech on the nation's unpreparedness. "I know that we are on the
brink of some dreadful scourge . , . some awful visitation from that Power
whom, I am afraid, we have as yet in our national capacity taken no pains
to conciliate ... Go to war without money, without men, without a navy!
Go to war when we have not the courage, while your lips utter war, to lay
war taxes! . . . The people will not believe it!"

Among other troubles, Madison's administration suffered from the fatal
defect of dullness. He never seemed to grasp the point that in order to make
government effective, it is first necessary to make it interesting. People
generally, and Americans especially, have never been willing to submit
themselves to colorless authority. To make men agree to alter their estab-
lished ways or put up with protracted pain in the hope of a later good,
there must be inspiration in the air, a feeling of faith in the future. It is
enough for the success of a Secretary of State if he is able to extract agree-
ment from the few, but a successful President in time of crisis has to be able
to inspire enthusiasm in the hearts of the many. In Madison's time, both
the enthusiasm and the agreement were lacking. The public refused to
follow him when he went forward to meet issues. For him,, the only path
open was that of least resistance, where the pitfalls are always deepest.

By mid-spring the President had almost lost hope that the War Hawks
would be able to push the Congress into war, When a group of prominent
moderates from both parties urged him to send a mission to England to
negotiate peace, he seized on the idea as a tired swimmer grasps at a floating
log. Senator Worthington of Ohio reported to friends that the mission, to
be headed by Senator Bayard of Delaware, was settled. To prepare the way
for it, the Washington National Intelligencer, which Madison used as his
sounding board, published an editorial asserting that the embargo "is not
war, nor does it inevitably lead to war/' Amazed, the country realized that
the discouraged President no longer had a policy; he was frankly groping
for a way out of his dilemma, without war, and without losing the presi-
dency.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The Bullet of Chance

i. The Practical Man

The guiding principle of British policy toward America, up to the spring of
1812, had been the conviction that the United States would not fight. It
was a conviction instilled in the mind of Prime Minister Perceval by "War
in Disguise" Stephen, "Copenhagen" Jackson, and John Henry, who had
many a letter from New England Federalists to support their thesis. Even
Foster's dispatches* flatly warning of war in the near future if the Orders in
Council remained in force, did not shake Perceval. He was one of those men
who are so anxious to feel certain that they never take time to find out. It
was his view that the United States really had no right to complain.
Nevertheless, since she did complain, England would be understanding
and gentle. In a speech to Parliament in late February, the Prime Minister
deprecated the suggestion that England was in any way hostile to the
United States. His country, he said piously, "could bear more from America
for peace's sake than from any Power on earth."

His righteous confidence seemed able to withstand every strain. A formi-
dable test came when riots linked to the Orders in Council broke out in
the northern countries. The textile industry had once more become badly
depressed by loss of the American market. Unemployed and starving
workers, however, found it easier and more gratifying to vent their feelings
on a visible and immediate cause the spinning and weaving machines
which had displaced much hand labor. They entered mills and smashed
machinery, until the scale of the riots soon became so wide as to suggest an
organized conspiracy. Troops had to be called out to suppress the Luddites
(a name taken by the rioters in memory of a worker named Ludd, who
had been the first to smash a weaving frame as an act of defiance) . Although
the breaking of spinning and weaving frames was made a capital offense,
and men were hanged for it, the trouble grew until there was talk through-
out England of another Wat Tyler rebellion.

Martial law, stern suppression by force, and wholesale executions of
workers was Perceval's answer to the Luddites. He paid little heed to angry
Whigs in Parliament who pointed to the Orders in Council as the real root
of the insurrection, and demanded their repeal and the restoration of the
American market. He shrugged at petitions for repeal from tactile manu-
facturers, who were not comforted by knowing that fdlow Britons owning

THE BULLET OF CHANCE

ships sailing under neutral flags were reaping rich rewards from the orders.
If there had to be a choice, he was for shipping, as more essential to Eng-
land's welfare. As for the unemployed men and women who were exciting
sympathy on the streets of London by their pinched faces,, tattered clothes,
and Hogarthian misery their lot was of course to be regretted, but such
was the way of the world.

2. Perceval Stands Fast

Late in March, however, heavy pressure against the orders began to come
from sources that Perceval could not ignore. The Russian ambassador, in
the name of Czar Alexander, made strong representations against permitting
the orders to generate an Anglo-American war. The Czar, having managed
to end his war with the Turks, was rallying all his forces for defense against
Napoleon. It was his hope that while Napoleon's army was approaching
Russia, England would seize the opportunity to land troops in the Nether-
lands. If the British Government now allowed itself to be diverted into an
American war,, both Russia's outlook and England's would be darkened.

The Russian view that the Orders in Council ought to be repealed
promptly for the sake of peace with the United States found strong support
even in Perceval's Cabinet. Richard Wellesley's resignation as Foreign
Secretary had involved this issue, for he feared that a transatlantic war
would increase the difficulty of supplying his brother's army in Spain, then
heavily dependent on American grain. So prevalent was desire for peace
with the United States that Perceval had found the greatest difficulty in
replacing Wellesley with a qualified Tory who would support the orders. A
number of the most prominent men in his party had refused to serve under
him, and Castlereagh, the former Secretary of War, who had finally accepted
the Foreign Office, was known to have reservations on the subject. More
than once Perceval himself had to rise in Parliament to defend the orders
against punishing attack. His speeches in their defense were monotonously
consistent. He made no pretense that the orders were founded on justice
or morality. The principle underlying them, he said in his characteristic
style, was simply "to secure to the natives of England that trade by means
of licenses, the profits of which without them would devolve to the hands
of aliens/' In other words, it was a matter of business and let the Whigs
attack business, if they dared.

In spite of all that he could say, Parliament would not k go of the
question. Early in March, the Marquess of Lansdowne, son of the late Ead
of Shelburae, followed in his father's footsteps as a champion of peace with
America by urging the House of Lords to form a committee for consideration
of the Orders in Council; ^nd he was supported by Wellesley and Greaville*
The eloqueat young Wfa%, Henry Brougham, made a similar motion in

[320] THE POUNDING SUBF OF CRISIS l8o2-l8l2

the Commons. A sharp debate followed,, in which the dangers of Perceval's
policy were fully exposed. It reached its climax when George Canning took
the floor. Commonly regarded, if without much ground, as coauthor of the
orders, he was expected to support Perceval. Instead, he turned on him. It
was his view, he said, that the orders no longer served to injure France, but
now "operated solely to the injury of the neutrals/' and were thus no longer
justifiable.

Parliament was intensely excited as the motion to review the orders came
to a vote. When the Tory majority held and the Commons rejected
Brougham's motion,, Perceval did not wait to assert his triumph. Determined
to foreclose the issue, he instructed Castlereagh to draft a dispatch to Foster
in Washington, reaffirming the British Government's policy. The resulting
document made no more attempt to defend the principle of the orders
than had Perceval in the House. Instead it took a position on one of the
narrow legalisms dear to his heart. England, wrote Castlereagh, stood ready
to rescind the orders as soon as France revoked her decrees. But even if
France were to issue a decree of revocation, if that decree applied only to
America and not to the other neutrals England could not regard it as justi-
fication for a similar action on its part. The British Government had never
engaged to repeal its orders "as affecting America alone/ 7 To do so would
be "the grossest unjustice to her allies and to all other neutral nations."
This was casuistry carried to new heights, even for Perceval.

3. Perceval Yields

Despite his outward self-assurance, the Prime Minister knew that his
political position had been badly weakened by the controversy over the
orders. The next attack might be fatal, might force him to choose between
resignation and capitulation, unless he could quickly strengthen his ministry
with influential figures. Where to find new blood for the Cabinet? By this
time, hardly a politician in England was willing to link his fortune to
Perceval's, on Perceval's terms. Desperately, he turned at last to a man for
whom he had always expressed contempt, the man responsible for the Peace
of Amiens, Henry Addington, now Lord Sidmouth. When even Sidmouth
would not accept a cabinet post unless the Orders in Council were re-
considered, Perceval reluctantly yielded to his stipulation. The administra-
tion, he said,, would no longer oppose Parliamentary action on the orders.

Instantly a change was perceptible in the government's attitude toward
America. The Prince Regent, on April 21, issued a formal statement which
in tone distinctly foreshadowed repeal of the orders, although still making
it conditional on revocation of the French decrees. Opponents of the orders,
men like Lansdowne and Brougham, called on the people to express them-
selves. Petitions for repeal, signed by hundreds of prominent men, poured

THE BULLET OF CHANCE [ J21 ]

in on Parliament. Hearings before Parliamentary committees showed that
the orders had been largely responsible for the blight that had fallen on the
British economy. The drift of the House was steadily away from Perceval.
Right-wing Tories did their best for him, but early in May some British
newspapers were predicting repeal and Perceval's resignation.

4. A Man Named Bellingham

The American legation in London, at that time, was under the charge of
Jonathan Russell, who had been transferred from Paris a few months earlier.
His state of mind was badly depressed. The British Government, now that
it had sent Foster to Washington, was irked by failure of President Madison
to appoint a ranking minister in Pinkney's place, and it paid little attention
to Russell. With his acquaintance in British political circles exceedingly
limited, and knowing little of Parliamentary politics and personalities, he
could not easily form independent judgments of the trend of national senti-
ment. The British press,, which was habitually insulting to the United States,
and official documents received from the Foreign Office were his chief
reliance for information. With these as a basis, he early came to the
dispirited conclusion that PercevaFs majority in Parliament was large and
solid, and that the orders would not be repealed. From the American
standpoint, he reported to Monroe in March 1812, the situation was
hopeless; and he repeated this early in April. Over the next month, the
President heard nothing from him to indicate the large and growing
pressure on Perceval to recall the orders.

On May 11, however, Russell had at last something of consequence to
report. The city was suddenly alive with horrified excitement. That morn-
ing, entering the House of Commons,, the Prime Minister had been ap-
proached by an unknown man, who had pulled out a pistol and without a
word shot him through the heart. For a brief time it was believed that the
assassination was politically motivated. One newspaper even alleged that
the assassin was an American. But inquiry soon revealed that the tragedy
sprang only from the deranged mind of a sick and unfortunate Englishman
named Bellingham, who had never met Perceval, but had fixed on him as
the author of his troubles. Somehow Bellingham had obtained a pistol, and
the rest followed, leading, as the London Times sorrowfully said, to the
death of "a thoroughly honest politician, whose private character was above
all reproach or suspicion."

The political implications of Perceval's death for America were obvious to
Russell. Eagerly now he awaited developments in Parliament It was his
hope and belief, as he wrote to Monroe, that a new government would
quickly be formed, and would repeal the orders without delay. Almost at

[ 322 ] THE POUNDING SURF OF CRISIS l8o2-l8l2

the same time, Russell received from Monroe a note announcing the ninety-
days' embargo. Calling on Castlereagh to present it formally, he directed
attention to the date on which the embargo had taken effect, April 4. On
July 4 it would expire. The implication could not be missed: England had
until then to avert America's "second war of independence" by repealing
the Orders in Council. Much now depended on a prompt choice of the next
Prime Minister and on his ability to organize a Parliamentary majority.
But the Prince Regent, hoping for a coalition Tory and Whig ministry,
found that Whigs like Grenville and Gray would not serve under Tories
like Wellesley and Canning, and vice versa. Week after week of hectic
political jockeying passed until a precious month had gone by; and still
the British administration was without a head, and no significant action
could be taken.

5. The Emperor Obliges

The new French Minister of Foreign Affairs, Hugues Maret, Due de
Bassano, was a far more positive personality than Cadore, who had been
abruptly ousted by Napoleon a year earlier for being insufficiently enthu-
siastic about the Russian war. News of the American embargo, sent by
Srurier, reached Paris in the early days of May, quickly followed by a
dispatch quoting Monroe as saying that "imminent war with England . . .
was inevitable if the news expected from France answered to the hopes they
[the American Government] had formed." To Bassano's thinking, S&u-
rier's dispatches came at an excellent time; they would make an excellent
parting gift for the Emperor, as he prepared to leave for the Russian frontier.
There was only one danger that if Fiance failed to make some responsive
gesture toward America, the Congress might yet insist on including her in
any declaration of war. Ever since his arrival in Paris, the American Joel
Barlow had been hounding Bassano with wearisome demands for proof
that the Emperor had actually revoked his decrees, and for redress in the
matter of ships subsequently seized or burned. A strong note, dated May
i, 1812, had stressed the danger of delay. No one had to tell Bassano that
Madison's political fate in the next election might depend on the desired
proof.

Napoleon was then extremely busy with military preparations, but he
recognized the importance of the papers which Bassano put in his hands.
To set the Americans finally at England's throat and to re-elect the im-
pressionable Madison were goals worth a little effort. On May 10, 1812
one day after the Emperor had left for the Russian frontier Bassano
calmly handed Barlow a decree which the American, by his own account;
stared at with incredulity. It was dated at St. Cloud, April 28, 1811; it was
signed by the Emperor; and it stated that previous decrees would cease to

THE BULLET OF CHANCE

apply to American shipping, as of November i r 1811 exactly one year after
the date of the Cadore promise.

The St. Cloud Decree was a piece of audacious mockery characteristically
Napoleonic. That it was concocted for the occasion, Barlow strongly sus-
pected; otherwise, surely, it would have been produced long since. But the
essential point was that, while ostensibly supporting Madison's contention
that France had revoked her decrees, at the same time it contemptuously
announced to the world that he had either been completely hoodwinked
by the Cadore letter, or had chosen to serve as Napoleon's henchman. The
revocation, if the St. Cloud Decree could be believed,, had taken place only
months after the United States had broken off intercourse with England;
it was merely a payment for services rendered.

What was Barlow to do? Accuse the Emperor and Bassano of fraud?
Cautiously, he asked Bassano whether the St. Cloud Decree had been pub-
lished. The Foreign Secretary had evidently been expecting the question.
Without turning a hair he replied that although the decree had not been
published, it had been communicated to the former American charg6 in
Paris, M. Russell, and also to S6rurier in Washington. Barlow thought it
extraordinary, then, that the news had not previously reached the President,
Doubtless, came the ready explanation,, the dispatches had been lost because
of some mishap at sea. Barlow tried again. How did it happen that the
decree was never submitted to the French Senate? As to that, said Bassano,
the Emperor did not wish other neutral nations, and especially Russia, to
know that America was being favored.

There was nothing for Barlow to do except send copies of the St. Cloud
Decree to Madison and to Jonathan Russell in London. Bassano took care
of S&urier, in a letter which insisted with a straight face on the fiction of
copies lost at sea. "I have learned from M. Barlow that he is not acquainted
with the Decree of April 28, 1811 . . . You yourself, sir, have never acknowl-
edged its reception . . . This silence makes me fear that . . . [it] did not
reach you, and I think it proper to enclose here a new copy."

6. England Concedes

The St. Cloud Decree, transmitted by Jonathan Russell to Castlereagh
in the middle of May, was a serious embarrassment to the still headless
British Government. Only a month earlier, Castlereagh himself, writing for
Perceval, had taken the position that the Orders in Council could not be
repealed until the French decrees had been revoked and revoked for all
neutrals,, not merely for America alone. And here was an ostensible act of
revocation designed to apply exclusively to the United StatesI It is under-
standable that Castlereagh heatedly called the St. Cloud Decree "a dis-
graceful trick;" Napoleon had put him in a position where he could not

[324] THE POUNDING SURF OF CRISIS l8o2-l8l2

endorse repeal of the orders without reversing the position which he had
taken a month earlier.

To the Foreign Office it was perfectly obvious that Napoleon was seeking
to prevent repeal, that he was counting on the orders to assure war between
England and America. The decision as to how to proceed had to await the
selection of a new Prime Minister. More precious days passed; then, early
in June, the Prince Regent gave up his notion of a coalition, and called on
Lord Liverpool^ a capable man, who had seen service as Foreign Secretary,
to form an all-Tory cabinet. By June 8 Liverpool had picked his men and
obtained Parliamentary approval. Almost his first act was to announce his
intention to deal with the Orders in Council. Four days later the Cabinet
discussed the matter. A way around the problem was proposed: instead of
letting Parliament force repeal of the orders, why not voluntarily sus-
pend them, without explanation? So it was arranged. On June 16, when
Broughham rose in Parliament to move for repeal, he was answered by
Castlereagh with the somewhat embarrassed announcement that the Orders
in Council had just been suspended on the initiative of Lord Liverpool.

England, with the exception of her shipowners, breathed a deep sigh of
relief. The Tory press changed its mind overnight, ceased to defend the
orders, and even expressed indignation that they had been permitted to
survive so long. "We are most surprised," sternly said the London Times,
which had staunchly supported Perceval,, "that such acts could ever have
received the sanction of the Ministry when so little was offered in their
defence/' The remaining question in the minds of Englishmen and of
Jonathan Russell, as he sent the good news to Washington by fast boat was
whether it could reach Madison in time. If war came, ruefully said the
Times, it would be the most unpopular war ever known. "Everyone would
say that with happier talents it might have been avoided/'

CHAPTER TWELVE

"Chaff Before the Wind"

i. Clay's Ultimatum

On April 9, 1812, President Madison was preparing to send a peace mission
to London to negotiate for repeal of the Orders in Council. On June 18,
two days after England had bowed to American pressure by suspending
the orders, the United States declared war on England. The written evi-
dence of the intervening seventy days reveals the sequence of events that
made up the President's unhappy mind for him, putting an end to what
S6rurier called his "perpetual oscillations/'

The propulsive touch that launched Madison toward his final decision
came from Henry Clay. A diary kept by Senator Thomas Worthington of
Ohio records that on April 12 or 13 the precise date is uncertain a group
of "hot-headed violent men" headed by Clay called at the Executive
Mansion. Officially they represented the Republican-Democratic caucus of
congressmen on whose vote the nomination for the presidency would de-
pend. According to the diary,, Clay told Madison that "nothing less than
open and direct war with England would satisfy that committee," and that
"they would forsake him and be opposed to him" if he persisted in his peace
overture to England. Subsequently Madison informed Worthington "that
his friends had waited upon him," and that he considered himself "bound
to comply with their wishes/'

This, at least, was what Worthington wrote; and while historians have
sought to throw doubt on the authenticity of his story, it is difficult to
believe that he invented it for the purposes of a private and unpublished
diary. He was, however, a strong advocate of peace and in attributing
overt threats to Clay, he may have distorted the Kentuckian's tone in the
affair. The relationship between the President and Clay had always been,
and continued to be pleasant and unconstrained which is not likely to
have been the fact if the Speaker had browbeaten Madison in the presence
of others. Clay had nothing to gain and much to lose by challenging
Madison's dignity and self-respect. There was no reason for him to do so. It
was easy for a man of his persuasive talents to put the case for war in terms
of the nation's security, and to let the rest be tacit. All that was necessary
was to quote the Republican newspapers of the period on the trend of
events in Europe. The prevailing belief of the party was that Napoleon
would soon conquer Russia, and thereafter beat England to her knees. Little

[326] THE POUNDING STJRF OF CRISIS l8o2-l8l2

weight was given to the fact that, in such an eventuality, despotism would
have conquered constitutional government. The desire to be on the winning
side was strong in the country,, and few stopped to remember that in most
wars the winning side can seldom be chosen with certainty until after the
fight is over, and not always then. The treatment which Napoleon's former
ally, Spain, had received at his hands did not shake the conviction of many
War Hawks that a wartime alliance with the victorious Emperor would
give America a subsequent claim on his good will.

Even those who were less sanguine of Napoleon's success could find a
rationale to justify war against England. If one assumed that the French
had not enough strength to master England, there was all the more reason
for the United States to aid them; otherwise she might later have to face
British might by herself. Madison's incessant correspondence with Jefferson
shows that this plausible, if superficial reasoning carried weight with him.

It is hard for a statesman and impossible for anyone else to distinguish
between his motives of public policy and his motives of private satisfaction.
In Clay's eloquent mouth the argument that it was safer to fight at once
than later could have provided the President with respectable reasons for
saving his political skin, and not much need have been said about the
nomination. Nevertheless, when Federalist Congressman Josiah Quincy of
Massachusetts rose on the floor of the House to assert that "plunging into
a war with Great Britain was among the conditions on which support for
the Presidency was made contingent/' not a single Republican rose to de-
fend Madison against the charge. With superfluities boiled away, the
residual fact emerges that Clay delivered an ultimatum to the President,
and Madison yielded to it

2. "The More Immediate Impulse' 9

On April 14, the administration's chief organ, the National Intelligencer,
came out with an editorial completely reversing its pacific stand of five days
earlier. No talk of peace missions now. Two sentences told all: "Let war
therefore be forthwith proclaimed against England . . . Any further dis-
cussion, any new attempt at negotiation, would be as fruitless as it would be
dishonorable."

There is convincing evidence that the editorial was written by James
Monroe, possibly at the instigation of Madison himself, but at the time
its style was thought to resemble Clay's. Washington took its authorship
far granted, and Federalists said that Madison was being driven by Clay
"like chaff before the wind." The elation of the War Hawks was uncon-
cealed. On April 18, Calhoun wrote that "war is now seriously deter-
mined on." A week later, when the House rejected a Senate move to
recess on the ground that war would be declared before the embargo had

BEFORE THE WIND" [ 327 ]

run its course, the Republican press roared its approval. As to the contention
of the Federalists that England would soon repeal her orders, it was brushed
aside. The main reason for war, according to the War Hawk leaders, was
not the orders, but impressment. "Accursed be the American government,
and every individual of it who . . . shall agree to make peace with Great
Britain, until ample provision shall be made for our impressed seamen, and
security shall be given for the prevention of such abominable outrages in
future." Thus the leading Republican magazine, Niles' Weekly Register,
a few days after Madison's capitulation to Clay.

Yet a shade of doubt of the Presidents intentions still remained in the
minds of the War Hawks. The Republican-Democratic caucus had been
expected to convene in April, but Clay, who had power to fix its date,
showed himself in no hurry. Soon a rumor spread which Augustus Foster
hastily communicated to London: "The reason why there has been no
nomination made in caucus yet, by the Democratic members, of Mr.
Madison as candidate for the Presidency is, as I am assured in confidence,
because the war party have suspected him not to have been serious in his
late hostile measures, and wish previously to ascertain his real sentiments."
To take advantage of this situation, the British envoy conceived a remarka-
ble idea: nothing less than to persuade Federalist leaders to promise Madi-
son their support, and so make him independent of the War Hawks, if he
would forego a declaration of war. Here, however,, Foster ran up against
the hard fact that most Federalists would have none of Madison on any
terms.

By the middle of May, the caucus could no longer be postponed. The
War Hawks held to their bargain, and Madison was unanimously renomi-
nated. He could not yet be easy, however. Disturbing news soon came from
New York that Federalist leaders there had struck a malodorous bargain
with the dissident Democratic Governor of New York, De Witt Clinton.
In return for Federalist support, Clinton, who firmly controlled New York
State, had agreed to seek peace with England if he should be elected
President. What made this development particularly ominous was that
letters reaching Madison from unofficial sources in England strongly sug-
gested that a pacific change in British policy was imminent. If it came, it
would greatly strengthen Clinton's chances. The President's quandary was
reshaping itself around him. With Clinton standing for peace, defiance of
England was the only possible campaign position left open to himself. But
if he was to justify a declaration of war, he needed fresh evidence of Eng-
land's hostility to put before Congress without delay a reason for war that
did not apply as much to France as to England. It must have been an
enormous relief to him when, late in May, Lord Castlereagh's dispatch of
April 10 arrived, setting forth the inflexible Perceval policy. Years later,

[ 328 ] THE POUNDING SURF OF CRISIS l8o2-l8l2

Madison insisted that "the more immediate impulse" to war had been given
by this dispatch. Coming when it did, it enabled him to tell the Congress
that England had given America a choice only between war and base sub-
mission. A few days later, on June i, 1812, he called the Congress into
secret session to hear his war message.

3. Pretext and Reality

The internal evidence of the President's message shows that it had been
in preparation for weeks. Like all Madison's state papers, it tried to make
up by thoroughness what it lacked in inspiration. His problem was to rally
the country's partisans to a semblance of unity in the face of danger. To
this end, he began by reciting the long and mortifying list of abuses which
the United States had suffered at England's hands over the years. Then he
went on to summarize his reasons for a declaration of war. First among
these reasons he put impressment. Here he was secure few Americans
denied that the forcible seizure of American sailors was an outrage warrant-
ing war. Even though over twenty years some of the heat had gone out of
the issue, it could still be depended on to excite patriotic fervor.

By emphasizing impressment, the President safeguarded his position
against expected concessions by England on the Orders in Council. He
needed a reason for war which English diplomacy was not likely to remove.
It did not trouble him that the British and his political adversaries could
say, with some justice, that in thus pushing impressment to the fore he was
ruthlessly misleading the American people. For more than two years, im-
pressment had been distinctly subordinate in the President's negotiations
with Foster, and repeal of the Orders in Council had been almost the sole
demand made by the United States on the British Government. To cite
impressment as the chief justification for war was like blaming one's grand-
father for one's troubles. The impressment problem was actually much less
acute in 1812 than it had been in preceding years. Whigs in England's
Parliament had been hotly criticizing their government in the matter, and
for the first time, British naval officers were making a serious effort to
distinguish between real and pretended American citizens. Early in 1811
Castlereagh had been compelled to supply Parliament with figures on the
number of impressed Americans in the British Navy. Thirty-five hundred
sailors, he found, claimed American citizenship, and there was reason to
believe that about half might be telling the truth. This was a grave ad-
mission; but against it had to be put the fact that approximately fifty thou-
sand deserters from the British Navy were estimated to be serving on
American vessels,, and the American government had done nothing to end
the traffic in illegal citizenship and forged papers. For a decade, Gallatin
estimated, desertions had cost England an average of about twenty-five hun-

"CHAFF BEFORE THE WIND" [ 329 ]

dred men per year; while the annual toll of impressments was about five
hundred of whom about one fourth were actual American citizens. If the
American government had not long since offered more resistance to the
British impressment policy, the reason lay partly in the fact that, in terms of
manpower, the advantage of the existing situation was overwhelmingly with
the United States. The same factor was influential in preventing compro-
mise. It is significant that up to this time the American government had
never offered, as it was soon to offer under the adversities of war, to exclude
native Englishmen from U.S. vessels if England would give up the right
of impressment. In the days of Charles James Fox, England had been
ready to discuss such an offer. The entire history of the impressment con-
troversy reveals Madison as much less than candid in making it, in 1812,
the main pretext for a declaration of war.

Besides impressment, the President told Congress, three other provoca-
tions by England justified military retaliation the harassing of merchant-
men off the American coast, the imposition of paper blockades of Europe's
coast, and last, the Orders in Council. All of these were serious grievances;
what Madison did not say was that Augustus Foster,, within the previous
fortnight, had indicated the readiness of the British government to ne-
gotiate on all three counts.

The realities of Madison's position were not to be found in his message.
His diplomacy had reached a dead end; he was weary and devoid of new
ideas; his political situation made him susceptible to pressures toward war;
and he held two dangerously wrong convictions that Canada could be
easily conquered; and that after Napoleon defeated Russia, England would
be at France's mercy. A complex of depression, ambition, and misconception
had brought him to war, more than England's crimes.

His avowed reason for selecting that particular moment for war was
equally based on fallacy. The President read Castlereagh's note of April
10 as making further delay useless. Yet he knew that strong elements in the
British Parliament were fighting hard for repeal of the Orders in Council.
Apparently he had no intuition of their success, or if he did, he kept silent.
Meanwhile Congress acted on the assumption that England had put an
end to negotiation.

4. "Throw Forward the Flagf"

The President's effort to bridge partisan differences by whipping up a
sense of national outrage against England proved unavailing. From the
first, the Congress was bitterly divided. On June 3, the House Committee
on Foreign Affairs asserted that the United States must fight "or submit to
the most shameful degradation," and a bill calling for war was introduced
by Calhoun. Now came a ticklish moment; Federalists asked that the debate

[330] THE POUNDING SX3BF OF CRISIS l8o2-l8l2

be made public, saying not unreasonably that in a matter of such tran-
scendent importance as war the people had a right to know how their
representatives voted, and why. Clay, however, was in no mood to take
risks. Open debate might have proved fatal to his hopes. Exercising the
extraordinary powers of the Speaker, he ran over the opposition, and the
session continued in secrecy. Debate dried up when Federalist leaders
silenced their party, rather than accept his ruling. When a vote was taken,
it revealed that the House had split not only along partisan but also along
regional lines. Approximately three fourths of the Republicans voted for
Calhoun's bill, and all of the Federalists against it. Of the 79 affirmative
votes, 48 were from the south and west, 14 from Pennsylvania, and 17
scattering. Of the 49 votes against war, 34 were from the New England^
New York and New Jersey, with 15 scattering.

The Senate, too, considered the war measure in secrecy, but there the
debate lasted two weeks. The vote, held on June 18, showed 19 for war,,
13 against. Some whispered that Madison had counted on the Senate to
defeat the war measure. Foster noted that on the night before the final
vote, the President 'looked ghastly pale/' It is understandable. With the
passage of the war bill, he found himself compelled to enter the struggle
with the wealthiest and most productive section of the country aggressively
pulling the other way.

Shortly after the declaration left the Senate, he had signed it. Dispatches
to military and naval officers, authorizing them to commence hostilities
against the enemy, went out the same day. The degree of disorganization
in the War Department is suggested by the fact that John Jacob Astor's
agents on the Canadian border knew that war had been declared, and had
taken steps to safeguard fur shipments, before the news reached most of
the American commanders. Suspicion of having shown unfair favoritism to
Astor subsequently fell on his friend Gallatin, but apparently Astor's
advantage derived more from his remarkable private express system than
from official connivance.

The President, painfully aware of the country's lack of preparedness, de-
clared that he had decided to "throw forward the flag of the country, sure
that the people would press onward and defend it/' This was an optimistic
assumption, as Congress proved at once, when the question of financing
the war arose. Opposition to new excise taxes was so strong that none
were imposed. The Treasury was permitted to borrow five million dollars,
and with this great contribution to the war effort, Congress adjourned.

Wealthy Federalists promptly let it be known that they would continue
to refuse participation in war loans. Some of them went so far as to tell
Foster, as he left the country for Canada, that if the British Government
stood firm, the United States would be forced to back down. Belief that

"CHAFF BEFORE THE WINB" [ 331 ]

the war would fizzle out within a few weeks grew when a copy of Napoleon's
St. Cloud Decree reached Washington shortly after the declaration. A
glance at its date was all that was needed to shatter once and for all Madi-
son's frayed hope of the Emperor's good faith. It was evident to all that he
had allowed the country to be swindled. Feeling against France rose still
more when news came that her men-of-war had seized American merchant
ships even since Bassano had handed the St. Cloud Decree to Barlow. Given
this proof of Napoleon's contemptuous double-dealing, many in Madison's
own party felt that he could not in reason maintain his war against Engknd
unless he were prepared to fight France as well.

5. No Armistice

Advocates of an early truce were still further heartened by the arrival,
early in July,, of news that the Orders in Council had been suspended be-
fore America's declaration of war. The same word came to Augustus Foster,
then safe in Halifax. Working with Canadian authorities, he swiftly com-
pleted arrangement for an armistice between British and American forces
in the east. The American commander at New York, General Dearborn,
who had been Jefferson's Secretary of War, was so sure of the propriety
of an armistice that he signed an order suspending hostilities without even
waiting to hear from the President.

He did not, however, know his Madison. The President did not for a
moment permit his war commitment to waver. Recruiting sergeants were
beating their drums, newspapers calling for volunteers, and detachments
from Kentucky and Tennessee, from the Carolinas and Virginia, from Mary-
land and Pennsylvania, were trickling toward the Canadian border. If the
rising flame of patriotism were to be stifled now, it might prove impossible
to rekindle it later. In a letter to Jefferson, Madison contended that accept-
ance of an armistice 'Vould have a bad effect on patriotic ardor." With
much groaning and creaking, the rickety American machine of war had
begun to move. In July a small army under General William Hull made a
foray into Canada from Detroit; another, in the Niagara region, prepared
to march on Montreal. The President could not afford to let external events
take his war away from him, especially with the election still four months
away, and with Henry Clay looking over his shoulder. A letter went from
the President to Jonathan Russell in London: he was to accept an armistice
only if the British first agreed to renounce the practice of impressment and
the right of blockade. These conditions, difficult at best for England to
accept, were phrased so peremptorily as to make plain America's intention
to fight. As for Dearborn, he was flatly told to resume hostilities. The Presi-
dent could not, he explained, agree to an armistice arranged by merely
"local authorities."

[ 33 2 1 THE POUNDING SURF OF CRISIS l8o2-l8l2

In October, the Canadian government again proposed an armistice, with
the formal approval of the British Cabinet. Now the President insisted on
proof that impressments had ceased before he would consent to stop
hostilities. Impressment had become the one weapon he could count on
to torpedo talk of peace.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

"Greatest of all the Lessons"

i. Narrow Squeak for Madison

"Perhaps," says Herbert Butterfield, in his The Whig Interpretation of
History, "the greatest of all the lessons of history is the demonstration of
the complexity of human change and the unpredictable character of the
ultimate consequences of any given act or decision of men." The sorry,
dreary, and inglorious war dragged its way onward, creating problems
greater than any it would solve. That summer of 1812, the easy optimism of
the West vanished. General Hull was forced to retreat first to Detroit, and
finally to surrender, with the result that British troops and their Indian allies
overran American territory as far south as the Wabash. Disgrace was com-
pounded in the East. Near Niagara an American invading force was out-
maneuvered by Canada's General Brock and compelled to surrender while a
large body of New York State militia, watching the battle from the American
side of the river, refused to go to their aid. Subsequent investigation disclosed
that the militia had decided to stand on their constitutional rights. They
were not, after all, required to serve outside the borders of the United States,
Their officers, moreover, knew the sentiments of New York's De Witt
Clinton, who regarded every defeat of the American Army as improving his
chances in the election.

Demoralization in the economic life of the country paralleled that of the
military. The war did not even have the small virtue of most wars, which
is to cause the people, at least at the outset; to stand together in a common
purpose. In the Federalist strongholds of New England and New York,
men disappointed by the failure of an armistice to materialize promptly
established their private trace with England. The embargo on trade with
the West Indies and Canada was so widely disregarded that customs officers
threw up their hands. It was said that in the summer of 1812 there was as
much trade on the Canadian border as in any normal season, war or no
war. In Georgia, too, smuggling reappeared as a full time occupation for
hundreds.

The administration could give the people no inspiration, because it had
none itself; no guidance, because it did not know where it was going. For a
people who had been assured by Jefferson and Clay that Canada was theirs
for the plucking, the defeats of 1812 were hard to bear. By midsummer,
wherever the President looked he saw humiliation and dereliction. Fortu-

[334! T ^OUNDING SURF OF CRISIS l8o2-l8l2

nately for him, the losses at Detroit and Niagara were soon thereafter
compensated by equally unexpected successes at sea. If America was shaken
by the loss of Detroit, England was amazed at the defeat of her famous
frigate Guerriere by the guns of the Constitution. "The truth is," confessed
the London Courier, "nobody ever supposed that one of our best frigates
would not be a match for the American." America's ecstasy over the
Constitution grew when, soon afterward, the British warship Java sur-
rendered to her. But the chief strategic importance of such victories did not
lie merely in England's loss of a few ships of her tremendous navy. The
significant point, not then realized by the American people, was that the
triumphant Constitution and her sister ships were clearing the seas for a
swarm of privateers. Armed American vessels equipped with letters of
marque and sent out as speculative business enterprises had taken to the
sea by the hundreds, and were wreaking devastation in the West Indies.
The London Pilot in March, 1813, startled the City and produced a stock
market slump with an announcement from Lloyd's that five hundred British
merchantmen had been captured by American privateers in seven months,
The sensational achievements of the Navy and the privateers quickly
pumped up Madison's deflated political hopes. He was aided, too, by the
courage of the Federalist elder statesman, Rufus King, in opposing Gover-
nor De Witt Clinton's presidential aspirations. The grounds of King's oppo-
sition and the manner of his statement were curiously reminiscent of
Hamilton's attack on Burr in 1800. King warned Federalists everywhere
that it would be better for the Federalists to be defeated with a candidate
of their own party than to win with a dangerous Republican demagogue
like Clinton, "a retail dealer in all varieties of political opinion," His implicit
support of Madison may have decided the presidential contest, which was
so close that a shift in twenty electoral votes would have given Clinton the
presidency. There was even a suspicion that the popular vote, which was
not tabulated, might have favored Clinton for, in the North, Federalist
voters turned out in astonishing numbers, while the South and West were
apathetic. The trend of national feeling showed itself in elections to the
House of Representatives, where the Federalists doubled their numbers,

2. Chaos

Re-elected, Madison could breathe easier, but not much easier. Reports
from Europe told of the calamity which had overtaken Napoleon in Russia,
and predicted his early capitulation. England was filled with renewed confi-
dence and battle lust, while at home morale was on the ebb. Gallatin
reported that the Treasury was almost bankrupt, and that the war could not
be continued without new taxes. Under these conditions, when in March
1813 an offer of mediation reached Madison from Czar Alexander of Russia

"GREATEST OF ALL THE LESSONS" [ 355 ]

who had his own reasons for fearing an uninhibited England Madison
seized upon it eagerly. Since Gallatin, besides being the ablest man in the
administration, was anxious to escape from the Treasury crisis which he
could plainly foresee, the President sent him to St. Petersburg to negotiate.
England, however, by then had lost interest in the idea of an armistice.
Plans for an invasion of the United States from the sea were already in the
making,, and the British Government was negotiating to obtain legal title
to the Floridas from Spain, as a preliminary to physical possession.

Some comfort came to the President and the people from the Canadian
border. The muddled War Department had been reorganized, better gen-
erals were at the front, creditable battles were won, and the British were
driven from American soil. Commodore Perry's great sea fight on Lake Erie
set the eagle to screaming with delight for a time. But underneath the
glitter of military triumph was a dark hollow of bankruptcy. To meet the
mounting expenses of the war, Madison at last persuaded Congress to grant
new excise taxeson sugar, salt, stamps, auctions, this, that, and the other
and the people paid them, if grudgingly. But it was not enough. Nothing
was enough. The government's credit became so feeble that it was obliged
to pay a 22 per cent premium to lenders, and even so had great difficulty in
borrowing.

The essential fact was that New England the only section of the country
where trade continued to flourish had acquired most of the nation's specie,
and was not letting it go. From June 1811 to June 1814, the Massachusetts
banks alone increased their holdings of hard money from $1,709,000 to
$7,326,000. Seeking to stop the drain on western and southern banks, the
President had recourse to a desperate expedient an embargo on trade not
only with other nations, but even between states, even in coastal traffic. In
this way, too, he thought to punish "those who are most ready to sacrifice
the interests of the country to their own" meaning New Englanders. The
result was one that he could hardly have failed to anticipate a renewal of
the threat of secession. This time the grim pro-British Federalist leaders
went so far as to organize the notorious Hartford Convention in which to
plan their strategy. Before the convention assembled,, however, Madison
realized that continuation of the embargo was about to destroy the union.
Back to Congress he went in 1814 to ask for the repeal of the act which he
had so strongly urged in 1813. To cover his defeat, he advanced a reason
which convinced few: that as a result of Napoleon's defeat, Europe was
once more an open market for American commerce, which ought to take
advantage of "extensive changes favorable thereto." In reality, like Jefferson
in 1808, he had come late to understand how much systematic preparation
has to be made before established economic institutions and practices can
safely be modified.

THE FOUNDING SUKF OF CRISIS l8o2-l8l2

The plight of the South and West remained as discouraging as before.
Commodity shortages appeared, prices rose, salt sold at five dollars a bushel,
sugar at twenty-six cents a pound. Men began to doubt the future, to have
a hard time remembering why they were fighting. A sense of futility spread
like a plague. The perfervid patriots of 1812 grew silent. Curses against
England became mere ritual. People could no longer be comforted by re-
ports of minor military and naval successes. They were frightened. Then
in the middle of 1814 the crisis came* touched off by the British raid on
Washington, and the burning of the Capitol and Executive Mansion. Every-
where but in New England specie payments were suspended and banks
closed. Congress and the Administration sought some way out of financial
chaos, and found none.

5. Luck at Ghent

The only hope that Madison could see was in a report from Gallatin
in St. Petersburg that, while England was unwilling to negotiate through
Russia, she would consent to meet in Holland for direct talks with an Ameri-
can peace mission. The President's state of mind can be discerned in the
speed with which he appointed and sent abroad a group of the country's
best known men, including Henry Clay and John Quincy Adams, while
Gallatin hurried from St. Petersburg to Ghent. There the Americans faced
representatives of an England intoxicated with her European triumphs and
the abdication of Napoleon. Rumors of an imminent invasion of the
United States were on everyone's lips. Gallatin reported one such rumor to
Madison that the British intended to land twenty thousand men on the
Atlantic coast, seize Washington and New York, and dictate the terms of
America's surrender. Later, however, he sensed that such talk was only a
cover for a very different project the capture of New Orleans, the delta
of the Mississippi, and the Floridas. A letter from Gallatin to Madison, dated
August 21, 1814, and received in October 1814, wame <l of this intention.
But the administration was then still disorganized by its flight from Wash-
ington, and no action was taken. When Andrew Jackson came to New
Orleans that December, he found the city almost defenseless.

The negotiation of the treaty at Ghent was one of the luckier achieve-
ments of American statesmanship. It was lucky, to begin with, in the calm
bearing and patience of Albert Gallatin. England's first proposal at Ghent
caused Henry Clay to explode > and begin to pack for his return home. To-
gether with other territorial concessions, the British demanded that the
United States give up most of the land between the Ohio River and the
Great Lakes to the Indians. Gallatin himself thought the negotiations in
grave peril, but he sensedas others in his party did notthat London had
not necessarily spoken her last word, and he kept the negotiation alive, His

"GREATEST OF ALL THE LESSONS" [ 337 ]

intuition was sound: England was formally making good a promise given
by Sir James Craig to the tribes to seek the return of their ancient lands,
and had no intention of prolonging the war merely for the sake of her
Indian allies. The proposition's main value, so far as the British were con-
cerned, was merely to gain time while awaiting reports from their military
commanders in Canada.

From Madison's standpoint, news of England's outrageous demand came
at a fortunate moment. American morale on the home front was near the
cracking point. Reading the notes which had been exchanged at Ghent, he
sensed their psychological significance, and promptly released them to
the press. The resulting wave of indignation that swept the country did
more to unify the nation than any preceding event of the war. Even
Federalists rose in patriotic wrath. State legislatures passed resolutions
calling for a massive war effort. "Don't give up the soil!" became the slogan
of the day. Parades in the cities whipped up popular enthusiasm. A spirit of
renewed determination showed itself in subscriptions to government bonds
and a large increase in the number of volunteers for military and civilian
service. This change in attitude made it possible for the President to en-
courage Gallatin and his fellow commissioners to stand firm; and the British
were told that either their offensive proposition must be withdrawn, or the
war would go on.

The potato had turned out to be a little too hot,, and the British dropped
it with a thud. From this point, the only provision asked in behalf of the
Indians was a promise of amnesty by the American government. The con-
ference then got down to serious business. The next British position was
that the treaty map be drawn to the doctrine of uti possidetis, actual
possession of territory by military forces at the time of signature. Behind
this proposal was the expectation that a Canadian force then invading the
United States by way of Lake Champlain, and the British expedition aimed
at New Orleans and already at sea ? would both succeed. Again the Ameri-
cans resisted^ again the conference seemed about to founder, again, at the
critical moment, unexpected news came to its rescue. Word was received
that Canadian forces on Lake Champlain had been turned back by a small
American squadron, under Commodore Thomas Macdonough, in a victory
the enormous implications of which were out of all proportion to the small
forces engaged. At Ghent, Gallatin and his colleagues for the first time
felt a surge of confidence, as they insisted that the peace could be established
only on the basis of status quo ante bellum.

England's first response was to refuse, for British troops had occupied the
northern part of Maine, as well as a fort on the American side of the
Niagara and the New Orleans expedition still remained to be heard from.
Now, however, the Americans were aided by influences of which they were

[ 338] THE POUNDING S&RF OF CRISIS l8o2~l8l2

unaware. Lord Castlereagh was then in Vienna, negotiating for the sur-
render of France with Talleyrand, and finding that although the defeated
Napoleon was on Elba, the French were by no means in a submissive mood.
Anticipating a further campaign on the continent, Castlereagh counseled
the Prime Minister, Lord Liverpool, that England "be released from the
millstone of an American war." Similar advice came from England's fore-
most military authority, General Arthur Wellesley, who had just been made
Duke of Wellington for his services in Spain. Refusing a suggestion that he
take personal command of British forces in America, Wellington bluntly
told Liverpool: "I confess that I think you have no right, from the state of
the war, to demand any concession of territory from America . . . and you
only afford the Americans a popular and creditable ground ... to avoid
to make peace."

And beyond the diplomatic and military reasons for a quick peace with
America were others strongly reminiscent of those which had pressed on
Shelburne in 1782, Shortages of grain had produced popular rioting in
several cities. Resentment of high taxes was threatening the hold of Lord
Liverpool and the Tory party on British property owners. Textile manu-
facturers were demanding early restoration of the American market, and of
American cotton imports. Shipowners wanted to put an end to the depre-
dations of American privateers, which had caused insurance rates to double.
The Admiralty was concerned over the necessity of diverting squadrons
of the fleet from European stations in order to convoy merchant vessels to
the West Indies and South America. The totality of the advice reaching him
caused Liverpool to dismiss for the sake of peace even his hopes for the New
Orleans expedition* Word went to his representatives at Ghent to accept
the American stipulation on territory; and all at once, a treaty became
possible*

3. Anticipation and Reality

The peace which Gallatin and his fellow commissioners made at Ghent
was a boon to the United States, but it could not save Madison's prestige.
None of the issues which were supposed to have produced the war were
even mentioned in the treaty. Every protestation that he had made to justify
the war to the American people was revealed as meaningless. Impressment
had been his great reason for war. In the summer of 1812, nothing less than
complete British capitulation on the issue would serve for peace. By April

1813 doubts had already set in, and Madison wrote to Gallatin that in
return for British renunciation of the impressment policy, the United States
would agree to exclude all native Englishmen from American crews. June

1814 saw the President retreat still farther. With France beaten, was it worth
while, he asked his Cabinet, for America to continue the war in defense of

"GREATEST OF ALL THE LESSONS" [ 220 ]

a theoretical right which England was not any longer likely to violate? Gone
now was talk of national honor. He urged the Cabinet to agree to accept
a treaty which would be silent on the subject of impressment; the secretaries
bleakly concurred; and the commissioners at Ghent were so instructed.

Nor was anything said in the treaty about Orders in Council, blockades,
or unlawful harassment of shipping. The tacit assumption was made that
England would no longer need to avail herself of such practices, and there
the matter was dropped.

The promises given to the American people of territorial gain had simi-
larly evaporated. When the war began, Madison had told Jonathan Russell
to advise the British Government to make peace on American terms before
Canada was conquered, for American possession of Canada would be a
later obstacle to peace. A year later, he modified this stand. Now he thought
that England ought to surrender Canada because in the long run she would
gain more from North American trade than from actual possession. This
argument, which Franklin had advanced from a far better bargaining
position in 1782, was highly artificial in 1813. By the time of the conference
at Ghent, Madison was glad to see the old Canadian border restored. Even
the expansionist drive to the south proved abortive. In the spring of 1813,
Madison instructed Gallatin to insist on America's right to the Floridas in
the treaty negotiation. Gallatin vigorously objected. The Florida policy, he
wrote, represented only a sectional interest and had no moral or legal basis.
He insisted that,, far from pressing so weak a point, American troops be
withdrawn from East Florida, and to this Madison had to consent,

4 "A Damned Bad Treat/ 9

The most unexpected clause in the document that emerged at Ghent
was written into it at the request of the British Government and gladly
accepted by Gallatin a pledge by the two governments to co-operate in
suppressing the African slave trade one of the few times that a specific
humanitarian purpose has been incorporated in a treaty of peace. From
England's standpoint, however, more than humanitarian sentiment was
involved. Not only were some of her shipowners protesting the unfairness
of barring them from the immensely profitable slave trade to the benefit
of Yankee rivals; most of her manufacturers and exporters, for whom the
economic advantages of colonial slavery were fast dwindling, wanted to see
the United States move in the same direction as themselves. Only the
British textile industry, with its low-priced raw cotton imports from America,
still stood to gain from slave labor. For the rest, there was obvious danger
in having the United States continue to build up a huge supply of very
low-cost labor, which would eventually enable her to undersell England in
world markets. As for the Americans, even those among them who, like

[ 34 1 THE POUNDING SURF OF CRISIS l8o2-l8l2

Henry Clay, were not opposed to slavery, could safely agree to the pledge
on the slave trade, which was too vague to be a burden to the government.
Clay was aware, moreover, of the growing conviction among southern
leaders that the Negro birth rate would in future provide ample supplies
for the American slave markets without additional importations from Africa*

When Clay held up agreement on the treaty by insisting that England
renounce in writing her tyrannical practices at sea, trouble flared in the
American delegation. For some nerve-racking days the arguments of Galla-
tin and John Quincy Adams ("a foreigner and a Bostonian") left "the West-
em Star" unmoved and it was only after much bickering that he finally
yielded. Adams made no secret of his belief that the Kentuckian's last-
ditch bellicosity had been for the record,, and was calculated with an eye
on the voters back home. However this may have been, the fact remained
that with Clay dissatisfied, and saying that it was "a damned bad treaty/'
the signatures of the commissioners gave no assurance that the Senate
would ratify their work. But here the advocates of peace were once more
helped by the unpredictable. Reports from New Orleans that Andrew Jack-
son's little army had beaten back England's invading force assuaged
America's wounded pride. Men cheered, drank toasts to Jackson, jeered at
England and consented to the war's end. The need for a show of victory
had been satisfied. The Senate's vote in approval of the treaty was unani-
mous.

The war, thirty years in the coming, was over within three. Some histo-
rians contend that it consummated America's independence from England,
and that it advanced national unification. Others believe that it aggravated
the division of northern and southern interests,, and accelerated forces mak-
ing for secession and civil war. All of these statements, doubtless, can be
proved. In the broad and iridescent flow of human activity leading up to
and away from a war, it is always possible to discern those "causes" and
"consequences" which are most congenial to the seeker.

CONCLUSION
ON THE COMING OF WAR

CONCLUSION

On tie Coming of War

i. The Question of "Inevitability"

It seems safe to say, on the basis of the historical evidence, that the War
of 1812 was not inevitable except perhaps in the Tolstoyan sense that every-
thing that happens is inevitable because it happens. If, however, one as-
sumes the reality of chance and of a degree of choice in human behavior,
then it is difficult to find justification for the view, put forward by some
historians, that the war was bound to occur sooner or later. Such assertions
can be nothing but a display of hindsight prediction. There is no warrant
whatever in the facts for the assumption that the War of 1812, or any other,
could not have been avoided indefinitely. Very slight changes in the knot
of fortuitous circumstance that linked England and America at the time
would have left no more reason for fighting the war than existed in the
many subsequent Anglo-American quarrels which were settled by peaceful
negotiation.

^The conviction that war is imminent and inevitable arises in some minds
in almost every crisis, and often in supposedly informed circles} In 1794
the Governor General of Canada said in so many words that war was coming
that year. In 1797 half of the American Senate was of the same mind. In
1808 James Madison did not see how war could any longer be avoided. Yet
they were wrong] Repeated crisis does not necessarily lead to war any more
than repeated clouds necessarily signify a storm, jfhe fact that men in high
places believe that war is at hand by no means makes it so. Henry Adams,
in his Education, recounted how in 1863 his father, Charles Francis Adams,
then minister to England* was so convinced that the peace between Eng-
land and America had been shattered that he hotly informed Lord Russell,
England's Foreign Secretary, "Hy Lord, this is war!" He had not allowed
for the play of circumstances beyond his ken. Half a dozen times since the
Treaty of Potsdam men in the higher circles of the American government
have solemnly assured each other of war with Soviet Russia within a few
months. In 1946, at the time of the Iran crisis, the late Admiral William
Leahy, then Chief of Staff to President Truman, flatly stated to a group of
government officials that he expected war "within a year/' Similar opinions
were expressed by others in 1947 (the Trieste crisis), in 1948 (the Berlin
crisis) and in 1950 (the Korean crisis). Doubtless there were many in
Moscow who held views of the same kind. But in each of those years the

[ 344 1 CONCLUSION

interlocking chances needed to translate the competition of the great
powers frofii the terms of diplomacy to the terms of war were absent.

In part,, the conviction that a given war is on its way arises from a
deeper, and often hidden belief that war, as a phenomenon of human ex-
perience, will persist as long as the species does. By accepting the inevitabil-
ity of war in the abstract, we condition ourselves to assume it in particular
cases. And an astonishing number of people who do not regard themselves
as mystics have resigned themselves to the notion that because there always
has been war, there always must be war. For many, the alleged inevitability
of war is almost a comforting thought, relieving the individual of responsibil-
ity, and seeming to justify those who have a powerful impulse to aggress.
In an effort to find a "scientific" basis for this fatalistic belief,, some
statistical-minded historians have even compiled awesome charts showing
the frequent incidence of war for thousands of years past. Is it not unrea-
sonable, they suggest, to expect that a phenomenon so constant in human
history should terminate abruptly in this century? But a statistician might
with equal sense, or nonsense, make a chart showing the growth of the
human species for the past million years or so, and ask whether it is likely
that mankind will come abruptly to an end in our own lifetimes as it
might if there were to be a major nuclear war. One chart would be as
plausible as the other.

Statistics of the past can tell us little of the future of war. As a primitive
means used by human groups in an effort to escape from their societal
predicaments, war's continuance can hardly fail to be dependent on the
feeling of men about their own chances of survival, and on the alternatives
to war that may be provided. One thing we knowthat long established
human institutions and practices have often been swept suddenly away by
the winds of change. Under the pressure of new inventions and ideas, the
inevitabilities of one age frequently become the antiquarian curiosities of
the next. The human condition in its societal aspects,, at least, can change
with surprising speed. What Marquesan Islander in 1800 would have be-
lieved that his countrymen would no longer be eating human flesh in 1900?
We do not say that because men have always died of cancer, so there must
always be cancer; since man has always been earth-bound, so he must always
be earth-bound; because half of humanity were once slaves, so there must
always be slavery. In our thinking about medical research, the technology
of travel, and the evolution of institutions we recognize that this age has
points of difference from previous ages. We know that it has so immensely
expanded man's horizons as to be certain to effect enormous changes in his
outlook and behavior. More than ever before in their experience, men every-
where fear war, and for the first time a political mechanism has been es-
tablished, however tentatively, to prevent it That war is always possible,

ON THE COMING OF WAR [ 245 ]

and even probable, goes almost without saying; but given the unprece-
dented pressures for peaceful adaptation now operating on human societies,
to assume the inevitability of war reveals a predisposition of the mind
rather than a valid conclusion.

Unfortunately, this widely encountered predisposition to the doctrine of
inevitability actually tends to destroy peace, for it undermines the morale
of many a man whose task it is to try to prevent war. Whatever might be
creative and hopeful in the mind is stifled by premonition of doom immi-
nent. Although a national leader may sincerely want to avoid war, if he
nourishes a conviction that sustained peace is impossible, he cannot be
zealous in its service. Men wearied by the long and demanding sessions of
crisis negotiation are often tempted to throw in the diplomatic sponge. "If
it must come, let it come" is a common thought which accompanies the
sinking of the heart among dispirited statesmen. Some even end by wel-
coming war as a way out of their diplomatic frustrations. Trudging behind
their armaments on the road to Armageddon, men are often so overawed
by the grinding movement of events toward war that they never look up
long enough to see where the road forks.

To be effective in negotiating for peace, a statesman has to believe that
it can be achieved and sustained that if nations continue long enough to
postpone the resort to arms, sooner or later changing circumstance will
come to their aid, reducing the tensions between them.yjiit this faith in
the possibility of a lasting peace is relatively rare! Many present-day states-
men were in their youth so steeped in outworn doctrines about war and
have so steadfastly avoided later enlightenment that they are psychologically
unfit for the tasks of peace diplomacy. To ask them, with Sam Johnson, to
clear their minds of cant would be to expect tojqtpuch, |nf$ome, the belief
in war's inevitability has a religious foundation.? More than one powerful
minister of state in our time has made it clear that he sees humanity caught
in a great contest between God and the devil, a contest which only war
can resolve. The devil, of course, is represented by the potential antagonist
And what self-respecting angel would seriously bargain with him? It is an
awesome thought that national policy in our age may still be set by men
whose inner goal is the obliteration of the unbeliever./

There are yet others in positions to affect humanity's future who* by
their acceptance of doctrines of predestination, gravely limit their useful-
ness. Fatalism is always a short cut to war. To help their countries peacefully
adjust their established ways to a changed societal environment is not easy
for men who believe that humanity's choices are meaningless. Their world
outlook was satirized by the irreverent Anatole France wheil he said, ''Be-
fore feet and rumps had been created, the concept of a kick in the rump
lay slumbering from all eternity in the womb of the Almighty." Some even

CONCLUSION

seem to think that the human race "deserves" a nuclear kick, and that in any
event, if it is going to happen, it will happen.

Belief in war's inevitability can be arrived at by allegedly scientific, as
well as by allegedly religious paths, but it remains equally devoid of founda-
tion. It is a suggestive fact that the findings of social scientists on the ways
of war have often fallen in conveniently with the political purposes of their
governments* The theory that war is nature's method of "selecting" superior
races was long a favorite among peoples whose governments had superior
military power as in England in the later Victorian era, and in the Ger-
man Empire of Wilhelm II and Hitler's Third Reich. Houston Stewart
'Chamberlain and Alfred Rosenberg, among others, assiduously spread this
doctrine, conveniently ignoring the fact that Darwin himself, before his
death, sharply modified his earlier position on war as a factor in the progres-
sive development of human societies. Even though Social Darwinism has
today lost its credit among most men of science, it has not been cleaned out
of the minds of some who sit at international conference tables. Having
been taught to believe in their formative years that "the fittest" nations
somehow survive in war, they secretly cling to the clich4 never stopping to
ask themselves, the fittest for what?

With the decline of the aristocratic and breed-worshiping state, however,
the fashion in inevitability doctrines has changed. Each great power has
now evolved a political theory which "proves" that, when the inevitable war
comes, it will only be defending itself against aggression. The belief has
been instilled in the minds of many Americans that so long as nationalism,,
totalitarianism, and imperialism exist in the world, there will be war. Since
Russia is nationalistic, totalitarian, and imperialistic, the inference is that
any future war will be of her making. The Russians, on the other hand,
have been assured since 1917 that only capitalistic imperialism, and its im-
plicit contradictions,, prevent the abolition of war. For orthodox Marxists it
follows that the "guilt" for another war would lie squarely on America.

A more sophisticated rationale for the belief that war is inevitable falls
back on Freud. Some contemporary prophets of doom hold, as he did at
one time, that man is innately destructive beyond hope of self-discipline,
that the members of a human society have only two choices either to turn
their destructiveness on each other, or to direct it against external groups
whose interests conflict with their own. On this ground, war is taken to be
inseparable from the future as from the past history of mankind. It has not
yet been sufficiently recognized that Freudian, like Darwinian theory in
this area no longer carries much weight with the modern apostles of their
sciences. As Franz Alexander concludes, in commenting on Freud's work
in war psychology, "The mere fact that man has aggressive impulses does
not permit us to postulate that war is unavoidable . . . The existence of an

ON THE COMING OF WAR [ 347 ]

innate destructiveness for its own sake, which goes beyond the limits of self-
preservation, has not been convincingly demonstrated." Freud himself, like
Darwin, substantially changed his mind about the nature of the war
phenomenon in his later years.

Whatever the source of the inevitability doctrine, it drains diplomacy of
its vital juices, fjjp effects show most clearly when statesmen begin to rely
on armament alone to sustain policy* The last refuge of the hopeless leader
is the hoary saying of Vegetius, who in the fourth century AJX wrote, "Let
him who desires peace prepare for war." Some statesmen who repeat
this may perhaps believe it, but if so, they have shut their eyes to the
unmistakable fact that military preparedness, however necessary, has never
been effective in preventing war for any considerable time. Even if a states-
man regards himself as a sincere peace seeker, he is not likely to be very
active or creative in pursuing his aim so long as he regards large armaments
as virtuous.

One especially dangerous by-product of belief in the inevitability of war
is the expectation that the war to come may be limited that is, fought
without the use of nuclear weapons. This prospect appears to give some
persons of influence almost a sense of relief, comparable to the relief of a
patient told by his doctor that he is not dying he will merely be crippled
for life. That a country reduced to desperation by so-called conventional
arms would refrain from using nuclear missiles and bombs if it had them is
something less than probable; but even on the best of assumptions, there
is still little promise of salvation in the concept of limited war. If fought
between great powers it could hardly fail to end in a welter of destruction,
misery, and revolutionary change. When prominent men advise their
governments not to repeat, in the next war, the mistakes of World War II,
but this time to plan strategy so that the nation's political as well as military
objectives will be achieved, the counsel has a fine Clausewitzian ring; its
only defect is that the objectives for which the leaders of the nation might
take the people into another great war would riot be likely to have much
meaning after the holocaust

\The hope of civilized man is obviously not in the limiting but in the
preventing of waoThat is why the need to audit the states of mind of the
men who make the world's high diplomatic decisions has become acute.
Nothing could be more irresponsible on the part of a contemporary govern-
ment than to send confirmed Clausewitzians or inevitabiKty-acceptere to
deal with international crisis.

As everyone knows, the will to negotiate is not very meaningful unless
the spirit of compromise exists on both sides of the conference table. But
the spirit of compromise is generated mainly by fear, and it is not to be
mistaken that evoy great nation in the nuclear age is fearful of large-scale

t 348 ] CONCLUSION

war. Patient and persistent efforts to work out viable compromises for
peace probably have a better chance of success in our time than at any
previous period of history provided, of course, that the negotiators are
backed by competent leaders in their home countries. Where demagogues
are not effectively rebutted by responsible government leaders, and are
allowed to set the popular standards by which statesmen are judged, the
ground is cut from under the negotiators of peace. Without inspirational
guidance to turn them from war, a people can hardly be blamed if it falls
into the easy fashion (like Americans in the time of Madison) of praising
the militants as the true patriots, and scoffing at the peace seekers.

Few nations realize in time their good fortune when they are represented
in foreign affairs and led at home by men qualified for peacemaking men,
that is, who have courage, imagination, patience, tolerance, a sense of
proportion, psychological insight, and power of persuasion, and who
clearly grasp the distinction between compromise and surrender. It requires
such men to risk their futures, as Franklin and Shelburne did, and to brave
a storm of popular protest, as Washington and Jay did, until the shocks of
diplomatic compromise can be absorbed by the public.

Are we then finally dependent on the hope that great leaders for peace
will be found on both sides in the present world struggle? Perhaps the
chance is not so remote as it first sounds. Crises of fear have often brought
remarkable men to power under all forms of government. It is not in-
conceivable that another wave of large-minded statesmanship, responding
to pressures in East and West alike, may rise in time to save humanity
from ruin.

2. The Moral Question

In one respect, the statesmen of the period prior to the War of 1812 were
in a better position to work for peace than those of our own decades:
they were willing to forego moral judgments of other nations. Not that they
were less religious than today's national leaders. On the contrary, most of
them had simple and profound religious faiths from which they derived
strength and comfort. They did not, however, wear moralistic blinders.
In the words of Professor Butterfield, "It was perhapTone of the "virtues
of the older type of diplomacy that in time of war it did not allow itself
to be entirely obsessed by the responsibility for violence . . . but recog-
nized that the war itself was . . . partly due to a predicament" Men
like Grenville and Jay concentrated on a search for viable diplomatic
solutions where men like Dulles and Molotov made enormous efforts to
exonerate their countries from all blame for the trouble they were in.

War tramples over man-made moral attitudes as if they were no more
than the whims of a day. Who is right, who is wrong in war? Each belligerent

ON THE COMING OF WAR [ 349 ]

asserts a moral claim, but what is it worth? Was Rome or Carthage morally
right? Was England morally right in the Hundred Years' War, or France?
Was Russia or Japan right in 1905? In the upshot, the winner's moral posi-
tion usually looks better, but only because he is better able to advertise it.
To enjoy the luxury of alleged moral supremacy, a nation must first achieve
supremacy of power. Then it quickly manufactures a moral justification:
imperial England in her heyday was only accepting "the white man's bur-
den"; Germany under the triumphant Hitler was merely aiding nature to
evolve a superior human breed. If Germany and Japan had won the Second
World War, the peoples of the conquered Allies would soon have been
brainwashed into guilt feelings for their "aggressions." For did not the
United States and England fay to keep -the German and Japanese peoples
in a reduced status? To measure accurately the comparative morality of
nations in going to war requires finer judicial perceptions than propaganda
generally permits.

Today it is increasingly recognized that the ultimate test of the morality
of nations is their relation to the continued development of the human
species. Where instinct revolts against a nation's behavior, as in the
instance of the Nazi atrocities, it is because of pity for the victims, of a
sense that the human spirit has been degraded, that the beast within
threatens to resume his primordial mastery of mankind. But even when we
are reasonably sure of our moral ground in condemning an outrage com-
mitted by a nation, we cannot escape the fact that in the modern world
such acts are to some extent international in origin. It is often forgotten
that Hitler was the product not only of Germany but of all western
civilization at a time of despair.

War, as distinguished from deliberate bestiality, is essentially an amoral
phenomenon. That is why great-power statesmen who strike moralistic
attitudes and seek religious justifications as they stand on the brink of the
abyss appear tragic or ridiculous to later generations. That such men are
often sincerely dedicated to peace makes no difference, if their doings and
sayings tend to bring on the wars which they profess to abhor. No man
can be effective in the complex bargaining of peacetime if he is obsessed
with the conviction of his moral superiority* Througjb the thick spectacles
of moral judgment the competitor nation always shows the face of the devil.
As revolutionary France in the 17905 was the devil for William Pitt, so
revolutionary China in the 1950$ was the devil for John Foster Dulles* Self-
righteousness can only defeat realistic efforts to adjust differences. In a
moralistic atmosphere, "right and wrong" replaces "true or false"; energy
that might go into fact-finding is used up in indignation; policy becomes
ominously rigid; and the chance of averting war steadily dwindles.

The Secretary-General erf the United Nations, Dag Hammarskjold,

[35] CONCLUSION

has warned that "we are on dangerous ground if we believe that any
individual, any nation, or any ideology has a monopoly on Tightness,
liberty and human dignity." In spite of this admonition, some contemporary
diplomats seem to feel that their main functions are to point the finger
and pound the fist. Even in the United Nations itself, the moralistic
view has forced itself into prominence, through the principle that a nation
which takes the military initiative in war is necessarily an "aggressor."
This would imply that the United States, in the War of 1812, was the
aggressor, and so morally culpable although she had repeatedly turned
the other cheek to England's provocations for years preceding the war. To
ignore the element of provocation in many acts of aggression is to run
counter to all human experience. The Boston revolutionists who struck the
first physical blow against a British tyranny which was systematically
impoverishing the American colonies were aggressive, but they had ample
provocation. To limit the definition of aggression to the actual use of
weapons is to take away its meaning. If Nation A builds up armaments on
the border of Nation B, and Nation B attacks to forestall their use against
her, the provocation was certainly as aggressive in spirit as the military
response. Even in cases of individual crime, it is often difficult to identify
the real aggressor and assign guilt. In the tangle of international affairs, the
moralistic concept of aggression in terms of merely physical violence is as
insubstantial as spider silk. Until such time as there is an international
military force capable of deterring any nation from a resort to arms, not
much comfort is to be found in the assertion that the guilt for war rests
on the striker of the first blow. It is only by seeking to reduce provocation
before physical aggression takes place that statecraft can work effectively
to avert war. If a military blow justifies international intervention, so do
the provocations that incite it

This is not to belittle the great contributions made by the UN in its
investigatory, arbitrating, and economic functions. But its narrow doc-
trine of aggression, by putting emphasis on responsibility for the first
overt attack, makes it easy for statesmen to indulge freely in military,
economic^ and propagandists provocations short of war, without being
called seriously to account. As for the effect on public opinion of this
UN doctrine, it is simply stultifying. Nothing could be less likely than a
UN debate in a diplomatic crisis to instruct mankind in the nature of
the large societal forces which continually press us toward tragedy.
Speech after speech by statesmen "on the world situation" turns out on
analysis to be bald-faced national propaganda. The UN concept of
aggression tends to make the problem seem to the peoples involved as
simple as a morality play, with the good people on one side and the wicked
on the other. And who would compromise with Bdial?

ON THE COMING OF WAR [ 251 ]

These statements are not intended to deprecate the value of moral
judgments. They do not lose sight of the fact that the evolving faculty of
moral indignation is one of the hopes of mankind. But moral judgments
can hardly be useful in situations the origins of which are not clearly com-
prehended. It is one thing to condemn, in moral terms, such manifestations
of individual sadism and group cowardice as a lynching, or the torture of
prisoners in a Buchenwald. Reversions to brutishness symbolize a threat
to survival of mankind and their psychotic origins are unmistakable.
Similarly, one may say with assurance that it is immoral in our time to
glorify war, since such propaganda, which carries in it the seed of species-
destruction, is the product of the egocentric power-lust. But the phenom-
enon of warsociety's repeated effort to escape from its predicaments
by mass violence is on a very different level. The assignment of comparative
responsibility for national aggression opens up so enormous a complex of
provocation and counterprovocation, running far back into time, as to make
moral judgment exceedingly hazardous.

The point, to paraphrase Bertrand Russell, is that moral considerations
have no place in objective investigation of phenomena. They should appear
only after truth has been determined. Then they serve a purpose by helping
us shape a sound attitude toward the truth. But if we allow them to interfere
with the process of discovering the truth, we invalidate reason and ethics
together. The hope of peace is not strengthened, it is weakened, by the
infusion of moral issues into international negotiation.

3. The Question of Cause

As the inevitability and morality fallacies operate to produce war, so does
misunderstanding of the nature of the war phenomenon. The obscurity
which still surrounds the way of the coming of war gives point to the remark
of G. Lowes Dickinson that "the most important things are precisely the
last to be known about, and it is exactly where it is most imperative to act
that our ignorance is most complete/' Before the timeless mystery of war,
humanity has always bowed down unquestioning, like Juggernauts wor-
shipers. 4 Men have dared to probe the structure of the universe and to expose
ihe inwardness of religion, but the mind draws back when war is at issue,
j and we accept its onslaught as resignedly as we accept an earthquake or a
Xhurricane. Even in our own age, knowing as we do the probable conse^
quences to humanity of a war ia which nuclear missiles are widely employed,
we remain relatively apathetic in the face of the threat. With a kind of
fascinated incredulity, the nations watch the relentless approach of war,
resigned to the probability that at a certain moment to come masses of
previously peaceable men will suddenly and eagerly set about the business
of inflicting agonizing deaths on each other, driven by causes comprehended

[ 35 2 1 CONCLUSION

only remotely, if at all. To be sure, they will have the pat formulas of inter-
national politics to serve as reasons: The enemy leaves us no choice. The
.nation's honor is at stake. We must fight or starve. It is better to die in glory
than live in slavery. We are only defending ourselves. We ask only for our
rights. Defy the foul fiend! But these time-honored simplicities explain the
nature of the catastrophe about as much as demonology explains a volcanic
eruption. "Where ignorant armies clash by night," in Matthew Arnold's
phrase, they need a scapegoat to bear the blame for their sufferings, and
who better than the other side?

The many learned and compendious books about the causes of war writ-
ten by philosophers, historians, and sociologists have had a singularly small
impact on the public mind. It is easy to see why this is so. Bertrand Russell,
Sigmund Freud, Charles Beard, Pitirim Sorokin, and Quincy Wright, to
name a few, have contributed in this field. Their erudition is of course
immense, their methods impeccable, their insights profound, but their
findings are strangely elusive, slipping away from the mind like eels from
the hand. A number of formidable symposia on the subject conducted by
UNESCO and by various universities are even more frustrating. Most
studies in the etiology of war give wry emphasis to Lecomte de Noiiy's com-
ment that "the more deeply man analyzes, the farther he gets away from
the principal problem which he meant to solve." Every aspect of the subject
has been analyzed and atomized, but the propulsive forces which produce
the periodic holocausts of history remain as obscure as the background of
an overexposed photograph. The investigators have not even created an
organized body of animating ideas on which further studies might be based.
It is worth noting that while there exists a solid science of criminology
which describes the nature, origins, and methods of detection of individ-
ual violations of social rules, no equivalent science (which might perhaps
be called "polemology") has emerged to deal comprehensively with the
collective crime of war.

War is caused bywhat? Nationalism is the cause, we have been told. So
is economic competition for markets and raw materials; and despotic
imperialism; also capitalistic imperialism. Books have been written to prove
that war is the result of the pressure of population on the food supply; that
it manifests the process of natural selection in which the ^fittest" survive;
that it expresses an instinct in man to kill and destroy; that it bespeaks a
sadistic neurosis in human societies; that it grows out of herd susceptibility
to hysteria. According to some historians, shortsighted national leaders
bring war upon us by their egotism and their mistakes; according to others,
munitions makers, international bankers, oil companies, and publishers
manufacture wars to satisfy their greed; and there are still others to tell us
that the same wars are produced by traditional national antagonisms, em-

ON THE COMING OF WAR [ 355 ]

bodied in ossified educational methods. Marx said that war is the inevitable
outcome of capitalistic class struggle, and Spengler that it is the inevitable
concomitant of the growth and decline of empire, while Toynbee strongly
suggests that it is the inevitable consequence of religious error. The familiar
phrases have a fugitive,, unreal sound, like the soughing of trees in a heavy
wind.

Inadequate ideas about the causes of war in the minds of statesmen are
today a major danger to humanity. For, believing that they know the "cause"
of a threatened war, they may easily arrive at a feeling of total futility. For
example, the rigid conviction of some American statesmen during the Cold
War was that the Communist doctrines of Soviet Russia and Red China
were the cause of the crisis. The inference was that if these countries would
only reform, the threat of war would cease. Those overwhelmed by the
ideological question completely overlooked the point made by Professor
Butterfield when he said, "We did not have our present fears and panics on
the subject of communism till Communism had come to be identified with
the formidable European position of Russia as it has existed since 1945."

In the Communist camp, orthodox Marxists have clung with equal fervor
to the theory that the cause of war is capitalistic exploitation. From this
they concluded that peace would become possible only when the rest of the
world had become socialistic. Publicists in many countries have taken the
stand that excessive nationalism is the root of war, and that the only way
by which the great powers can find peace is to subordinate themselves to
international rule. Sociologists have advanced the theory that the pressure
of increasing population on the world's resources is responsible for the
urge to war, implying that only birth control and scientific methods of
production together would put an end to the danger,
* When rigid ideas of causation are held by men who are in a position to
shape history, they can be infinitely harmful to peace diplomacy. For they
subconsciously destroy hope of peace. If one really believes that peace can
only be preserved by some enormous and altogether unlikely transformation
of world conditions in the immediate future such as submission of the
great powers to a sovereign world government, or voluntary democratization
of the Communist nations, or voluntary acceptance of socialism by the
United States, or world-wide cooperation for birth control, or universal
disarmament then, regardless of the merits of thesejdeas, one cannot seri-
ously expect to prevent another war in tomorrow's crisis. A psychological
commitment by a statesman to a theoretical panacea does not promote
peace; on the contrary, it acts as a dead weight on the mind and spirit,, it
makes for paralysis and frustration, it blocks the road for hopeful and
creative possibilities of compromise.

Today tiie rulers of nations all devotees of peace, if we accept their

[554] CONCLUSION

word for it take a gingerly approach toward the problem of war's causa-
tion. They tiptoe toward it like a person entering a sickroom. Theirs is the
uneasy spirit of physicians assigned to rid a troublesome patient of a
dread disease, but who cannot even decide on a diagnosis. In consequence,
they deal only with the superficial symptoms of the moment. Contemplating
a rash of armaments they may prescribe a conference: for an outbreak of
hostile propaganda, they recommend a rise in the military budget. The truth
is that the world of the space age is nearly as baffled by the war phenomenon
as the world of antiquity, which ascribed wars to the will of the gods.
Ideally, the question of causation should be answered by many careful
studies in the etiology of the war phenomenon, studies free from national-
istic bias, relating historical, sociological, economic, and psychological data,
and on which a general theory of causation could be firmly based. But it
will certainly be a long time before works of this type are forthcoming in
quantity, and the world cannot wait for the social sciences to catch up with
reality. In the crisis of today, men must depend in large measure for their
survival on the intuitive realizations of statesmen as to the causal process
leading to war, and its implications for their policies.

4. The Web of Causation

For thirty years,, from 1782 to 1812, the United States and England faced
each other in hostile attitudes. During this prolonged period of tension
informed men frequently expected and predicted an actual war, and were
proved wrong. It is an arresting fact that the ominous predictions remained
unfulfilled when the danger appeared greatest. For it was then that extraor-
dinary efforts were made by skilled diplomats to preserve peace; but when
the troubles between the two nations had begun to ease, and diplomacy
grew careless, rigid, and uncreative, the war came.

Some historians have asserted that the War of 1812 was essentially a con-
test for maritime power; some that it grew out of the American West's urge
toward territorial expansion; some that it was the consequence of slow com-
munications; and some that it was "Mr. Madisons' war," or "Mr. Clay's
war." One writer on the subject has listed no less than a dozen causes of
the war, ranging from the land hunger of western farmers to a desire to
defend the national honor, and from American Anglophobia to the impress-
ment controversy. Where there are so many explanations^ nothing has been
explained. Static analysis of historical data can no more reveal the causes
of the war phenomenon than dissection of a suicide's body can reveal his
despair. The reasons which a nation's leaders advance for going to war are
usually extracted from the political context to serve their own purposes.
And those other reasons which historians subsequently uncover in the state
papers, letters, journalism, and speeches of the time seldom relate to the

ON THE COMING OF WAR [ 555 ]

larger forces which held the belligerent peoples in their grip. One could
list fifty motives for a war, and call them causes, and still be no closer to an
understanding of how the war came about

Even so compressed a record as that in the preceding chapters of this
book makes it clear that the War of 1812 arose out of a compkxinterplay
of forces going far beyond the moods and motives of the year.yjlie coming
of the war can be understood only in terms of dynamic process of the
evolution of ever shifting pressures and events, operating on the minds of
the involved societies and their leaders. Seen in long perspective, this
causative process began to take definite shape when the treaty of 1783 be-
tween England and America acknowledged the political separation of the
two countries. They then entered upon a period of peace in a competitive
relationship. It became the function of their diplomacy, as it is always the
function of diplomacy,, to establish the terms of that competition, and to
embody those terms in contractual agreements, or treaties. The terms agreed
upon represented the best diplomatic judgment of the relative power of the
two nations power in the sense of energy available for use in compulsion
or persuasion.

The negotiating statesmen knew, however, that national power is not a
fixed, or even a predictable quantity for any considerable time. It com-
prises many variable elements, such as the size, composition, and health of
the population, and its geographic situation; the quantities and types of
armaments; the discipline, training, and morale of soldiers and civilians; the
customs and traditions of the people, their unity, homogeneity, and devo-
tion to national symbols and the personalities of leaders; their economic
productivity, self-sustaining capacity, and state of technological develop-
ment; the nation's communications and education; its wealth and its credit;
its alliances and national traditions of friendship and enmity; its military
commitments; the quality of its diplomacy and espionage as reflected in
accurate information about other nations; the effectiveness of its ideological
propaganda and its economic influence abroad; the readiness and ability of
allied nations to lend financial and military aid; and the like.

A change in any one component of power could greatly affect the ag-
gregate. After 1783, an important factor in the power of the United States
relative to England derived from the Franco-American alliance. Once that
collapsed, the balance of power shifted strongly to the British side. jOn the
other hand, the more rapid rate of growth of the American population and
its higih productivity made for a long-range increase in the relative power of
the United States. The problem of preserving peace,, therefore, ky in the,
ability of the two nations to agree on successive modifications of their
treaties the tarns of their competition- to accord with actual and mutu-

[ 356 ] CONCLUSION

ally understood changes in their relative power. A realistic treaty made for
peace; an obsolescent treaty for war.

Since there was no scientific way to measure or compare the shifting power
aggregates of the two nations (any more than there is today) the judgments
formed by statesmen had to be largely intuitive. Agreement could be
reached only when responsible leaders on both sides arrived at similar
realizations of their countries' total situations. Shelburne and Franklin
sensed the Anglo-American power relationship in much the same way, and
so were able to promote a viable treaty. Similarly, Jay and Grenville came
to the same general conclusion as teethe significance for American power
of the French Revolution, Even Jefferson and Canning, despite their polar
differences in political theory, were not far apart in their judgment of rela-
tive national power in 1807. ^ ^ e sure, Jefferson miscalculated the time
needed to enable the United States to influence British policy by economic
measures, but his feeling for the total power relationship was such that he
regarded an Anglo-American war as an evil to be avoided except in the last
extremity (it was when two n(Q]njn|ukive men assumed leadership at the
same time in both countries the narrow, stubborn Perceval and the over-
intellectualized and uncertain Madison that the diplomacy of the two
nations became inadequate to preserve peace.

As changes took place in the power aggregates, they were immediately
reflected in pressure on the established ways of the two countries. Thus,,
the rapid growth of America's population and fertile land area led early to
the production of a large surplus of agricultural commodities. Given the
incentive to export and the need for imports, and given the availability of
lumber and iron for ships, of improved construction techniques and experi-
enced sailors, it was not long before America possessed a merchant marine
strongly competitive to that of England. Over the first two decades of her
national existence, this development represented a significant increase in
her coercive power. But England declined to recognize America's increased
power by changing her established ways; and having been refused a
reciprocal commercial treaty by England, the new American merchant
marine found itself seriously restricted by established British "rales" of the
sea, notably by the Rule of 1756, and the even more stringent Orders in
Council. The controversy centering on those rules then became a major
source of hostility and war threats.

Whenever a significant shift in the power aggregate of one nation took
place, its result was a display of aggression,, centering on the established
ways. The collapse of the Frano>-Anierican alliance, by manifestly weaken-
ing America's power, impelled her to accept, in Jay's Treaty, restrictions
which did violence to her institution of national sovereignty. The Louisiana
Purchase generated an expansionist urge which gapped the American West

Otf THE COMING OF WAR [ 557 1

and threatened the established boundaries of Canada. The rapid growth
of the American population, by creating a large market for British cottons,
and the invention of the cotton gin,, by establishing America as England's
best source for raw cotton, made England's textile industry highly vulnera-
ble to punitive American trade policies, and put heavy pressure on British
maritime laws and policies. In each case, changes in the American power
aggregate led to a renewed controversy to determine whether one country's
established policies and practices shouHbe kept intact or should be modi-
fied to the benefit of the other country. Tl

Since shifts in relative power took many forms and were frequent, one or
more of the established ways of the two countries was almost continuously
under pressure. This pressure generally expressed itself in diplomatic pro-
test. Many of the protests carried an implied threat of war; and their effect
was to give rise to successive waves of crisiiQrhe specific forms of the crises
varied greatly. As the precise shape of an ocean wave can be affected by the
winds of the moments, so comparatively minor unpredictable events had
much to do with the precise nature of the war threats which presented
themselves to the statesmen of the two countries over the years. If four
deserters from a British squadron had not enlisted on the Chesapeake in
1807, the Leopard would not have hunted her down, and the resulting crisis
over impressment would not have occurred although crisis due to some
other chance event might well have replaced it. Similarly, chance events in
many instances facilitated non-violent resolutions of crisis as when an
epidemic of yellow fever aided Washington in resisting pressure to go to
war in 1793.

Shifts in the fundamentals of power strain on the established ways-
chances of the moment on these three levels* the causative process which
led to the war revealed itself over the years. It is hardly necessary to add
that events on any one level were inextricably involved with events on the
others. It is not fanciful to think of the war as having emerged from a long,
vibrating web of causation. The thickest strands of the web, its framework,
so to speak, were those formed by substantial changes in the relative power
of the competitive societies, but the connecting filaments were no less im-
portant in producing the final result

5. Every War a War of Rebellion

The thesis here is that the coming of the War of 1812 is best understood
by putting aside the concept of "cause/' in the familiar sense of motive,
and recognizing a dynamic process of causation, which stems from changes
in the power aggregates of the nations concerned. Perhaps another example
within our own century may serve to illustrate this process more emphati-
callythe Russo-Japanese War of 1905. The pressures which brought about

[ 358 ] CONCLUSION

this war were fifty years in developing. Prior to 1854,. when Commodore
Perry compelled the Japanese to trade with the United States and intro-
duced them to the industrial revolution, there was no trouble between
Russia and Japan. Thereafter, Japan's birth rate soared and her population
rapidly became urbanized, while her island resources remained sharply
limited. Her internal strain grew as typical standards of living declined,
but her total productivity and potential coercive power nevertheless in-
creased with mechanization of factories. Pressed by ever increasing need for
foodstuffs and other raw materials, she turned her eyes to the resources and
markets of China, Manchuria, and Korea.

Meanwhile, the monied class of Russia had acquired economic interests in
China, Manchuria, and Korea. Russia was not especially disturbed when
Japan in the 1890$ defeated the Chinese in a few one-sided battles and
acquired extraterritorial rights such as the other great powers already held in
China. But when Japanese traders sought to penetrate Manchuria and Korea
the Russians blocked the way. Japan, with the aid of British and German
arms manufacturers, then began to build a modem army and navy. For a
time England supported Japanese diplomatic efforts to persuade Russia to
share with Japan her commercial privileges in Manchuria and Korea,, without
war, and these attempts for a time showed some promise of success. The
Russian Government, however, was then being harassed by strikes of
workers in industrial centers, and by the restiveness of peasants on the
great rural estates. Advisers close to the Czar felt that war with Japan
would strengthen the government's hand in dealing with dissident elements
at home. At the same time, faulty Russian military intelligence grossly
understimated Japan's chances of success in a war. In consequence, Russia
refused to adjust her established ways to the changed reality of her situation
vis--vis Japan. War followed, and Japan began the course of expansion
which culminated at Pearl Harbor in 1941,

In 1905 there was a great deal of talk about Japanese aggression, but it is
obvious that the word, with its moral implications, was actually irrelevant
The Russo-Japanese predicament grew largely out of an unforeseen rise in
Japan's population and industrial productivity -changes for which no ad-
equate provision could be made by international diplomacy. Seen from a
sociological standpoint, the Japanese nation was rebelling against another
nation's established ways territorial demarcations which were stifling a
Japan conscious of her increased potential power.

In a very real sense, every war is a war of rebellion rebellion against
frustration. Whenever a nation satisfied with its established ways refuses to
modify those ways to accord with societal changes which operate to in-
crease the potential power of a rising competitive nation, war threatens.
While the causal process leading to World War I is very intricate, it is not

ON THE COMING OF WAR I 359 1

unrealistic to conceive of it as au fond a rebellion by Germany, whose
population,, technology, and internal unity for decades past had been
developing at an extraordinary rate, against the frustrating system of treaties,
commercial agreements, and colonial claims established by England and
France for their own benefit in the preceding century. England's and
France's refusal to make substantial voluntary modifications of their estab-
lished ways resulted in successive crises, the last of which was translated
into war by the bullet fired at Sarajevo.

The fundamental relation between the threat of war and the large, im-
personal shifts in societal power which generate that threat can be seen in
the records of wars of every age and of every type the wars of savage tribes,
of city-states, of feudal lords, and of political and religious factions, as well
as of nations and empires. What is known of the history of the American
Indians strongly suggests that when the relative power of neighboring tribes
remained fairly constant over a period of time, they respected each other's
hunting grounds; but when a sharp change took place in the relationship
a decline in one tribe's food supply, or an unusual increase in its male
population, or the rise of an exceptionally gifted military leader the
affected tribe found reason, such as "the wish of the Great Spirit," to chal-
lenge the established ways of its neighbors by war.

Europe's religious wars of the sixteenth century were similarly preceded
by sharp increases in the power aggregates of Protestant factions. This shift
in relative power resulted largely from Protestant predominance in trade
at a time when an influx of gold from the New World was producing an
abrupt expansion in the supply of money. When heavy pressure by
Protestants on laws created for Catholic societies failed to bring voluntary
concessions, crisis was quickly aggravated by religious differences to the
point of explosion.

Nor is the process different, in principle, in civil wars. In the case of the
American Civil War, it is easy to perceive that the comparatively large rise
in the North's population and industrial productivity over the preceding
fifty years put steadily increased pressure on the established institutions of
the agrarian South. Refusal to adjust to the pressure led to prolonged crisis
on which chance events played until the South's leaders decided to gamble
on secession and war.

The societal predicament leading to war begins when two human groups
(nations, parties, sects, tribes, or gangs) have established a relationship to
each other. An unforeseen development (such as an increase in popula-
tion, new discoveries or inventions, new ideas, new leadership, or energizing
glandular stimulation due to religious frenzy or superstitious zeal) generates
a sense of increased power in one or the other group and makes the old
relationship appear no longer tolerable to it. The stimulated group there-

[ 360 ] CONCLUSION

upon demands a change in the relationship. Its demands threaten the es-
tablished ways of the satisfied group and they resist. Frustration on the
one side and fear of change on the other create feelings of mutual resent-
ment and hostility. Whether or when violence results, and for how loug, is
determined largely by the desire and ability of the group leaders to effect
indicated adjustments of the established ways by persuasion and negotiation.
Where there is a highly developed diplomatic tradition and where adequate
means of communication exists, the effort to bring about change without
violence may be sustained for a considerable time. During that time, new
unforeseen events may reduce the drive to violence. But when emotion runs
away with group policy, or when persuasion is ineffectual, war usually occurs
that is, lethal violence between opposed groups involving large numbers
of people over a prolonged period,

6. At the Root of War

Men are usually less frightened by the terrors of war than by the threat
of change in their established ways the institutions, organizations, systems,
traditions, taboos, customs, and practices which they associate with their
survival. For those ways they will fight to the death; in this sense,, it is
correct to say that war, in which men die, manifests their instinctive urge
to live. That the established ways for which they fight may not in fact be
important to their well-being does not necessarily matter. Nor does it neces-
sarily matter that the real beneficiaries of a challenged institution or practice
may be only a small group in the population. If the citizen is made to feel
that a change in the established ways would make life unbearable, whether
it actually would or not, he will call for war, kill and be killed, rather than
adjust himself to the unfamiliar.

At the root of war, nourishing his aggressive tendencies, lies man's pas-
sionate attachment to the past. His evolutionary experience has made him
conservative, if less so than the other herd animals; and conservatism, as ex-
pressed in politics, has been his constant shield againt the wildly impulsive
and the recklessly experimental. But conservatism petrified is the precursor
of the war-doom. A nation gripped by the urge to preserve its established
ways intact in defiance of changed world conditions is pointed toward"
disaster. The knot which Alexander out with his sword at Gordium rep-
resented the pressures of an ever changing world on peoples who have been
conditioned to resist change.

The common predicament of the statesman seeking peace is that he dare
not, if he is to preserve his popularity, openly advocate the changing of
established ways, even when he believes such changes to be necessary. In
consequence^ most peoples have no idea whatever pf the real issues con-
fronting them in a war crisis. They think they are for peace when actually

ON THE COMING OF WAR [ 361 ]

their rigidity is preventing peace. Because they are "against war" or "against
unjust war/' they believe themselves to be right-thinking and moral, but they
might as well be for or against volcanoes, for all the difference their pacifism
makes.

If fact, many citizens who regard themselves as peace lovers are con-
tinuously, if unconsciously, pushing their countries toward war by their rigid
insistence on preserving their established ways intact in the face of tremen-
dous societal changes in the world. The experience of the American people
in the 19205 is a case in point. For more than a decade, the nation, in all
its words^ strove for peace. It responded enthusiastically to the Kellogg-
Briand pact "to outlaw war." The United States sponsored a disarmament
conference, and voluntarily reduced its Navy as an example of good will
and faith in enduring peace. But at the same time, the people voted into
office an administration whose tariff and financial policies contributed
strongly to the world-wide economic collapse of the 1930$, which in turn
helped to produce the military recrudescence of Germany. Although Ameri-
can diplomacy was theoretically peaceful, it could not offset the war-generat-
ing character of the country's economic policy.

Nations agree, in principle, that war should be outlawed, but wherever
the desire for peace challenges the established ways there is usually a large
gap between word and deed. In principle, most peoples in the world today
subscribe to the idea of the United Nations. Almost everyone is glad to see
an international agency serve as arbitrator of other peoples' disputes. But
this is a far cry from willingness to submit one's own country to a supra-
national authority. Governments may in all sincerity pledge their nations
to abstain from the unauthorized use of force and to bring their differences
to a General Assembly or a World Court for settlement; but in the final
test such pledges have meaning only if peoples can be brought to accept
change for the sake of peace.

That the relatively contented peoples of the world will continue to be
reluctant and slow to change their established ways is obvious enough.
Men generally have not yet faced the implications of the facts that nature,
in a state of constant flux, is constantly imposing new requirements on the
human species, and that no nation is u an island, entire of it self/' To pin
the hope of peace on great and swift transformations in competitive
societies would be, to say the least, optimistic. It is only in the ability of
statesmen to find means of bringing about gradual and continuous read-
justments that there lies any substantial chance of preventing war in our
time.

The universal fear of nucleti war provides both some time and incentive
for innovating m the field of peace diplomacy; and the potentialities of
that field have batdly begun to b^ tapped. The initial need, there can be

[ 362 ] CONCLUSION

little doubt, is to create an atmosphere of discussion in which statesmen
can talk of mutual and gradual readjustments for the sake of peace without
becoming instantly suspect to their peoples.

Many ideas of this nature are already being explored. But it is not enough
to try to draft agreed principles for internationally controlled reduction
of armaments, and for cessation of the manufacture and testing of nuclear
weapons. It is not enough even to obtain pledges against surprise attacks
and the use of nuclear, chemical, and biological warfare, or to examine the
possibility of creating an international police force. Such efforts, while
obviously desirable, are only a beginning of the long-term diplomatic
process required to preserve peace in our time. The chances of success
for any one diplomatic conference held under mid-twentieth-century con-
ditions are not large enough to justify reliance on them. The importance
of peace talks at this stage perhaps lies less in their specific results than in
the fact that they are held and continue, allowing time for the easing of
tensions and the reinvigoration of statesmanship. For this reason, the high
international conference needs to be multiplied, and not only in connection
with armament

If some of the subjects which might be discussed are touchy, that is all
the more reason to let them be exposed to careful investigation. One such
subject is the problem of removing nationalistic and imperialistic strings
from aid to underdeveloped nations. Another is the revision of the UN
Charter, both to increase its powers, and to improve the present method
of voting in the General Assembly, which now disregards the size and
productivity of its constituent nations. Studies might also be made look-
ing toward a permanent international agency with powers to initiate re-
negotiation of existing treaties, the obsolescence of which may provide
provocation for war.

There are also non-controversial areas in which preliminary moves might
be taken for the gradual extension of international authority in the main-
tenance of peace, without challenging the traditional sovereignty of the
powers. As Professor H. S. Commager has suggested, international uni-
versities might be created to increase understanding of mutual problems
among competitive nations. Common international standards might be
strongly promulgated for the teaching of history, with a view to the abate-
ment of national prejudices. The psychological requirements for effective
peace diplomacy could be studied on an international level, and put into
the consciousness of heads of state as they select their nations' spokesmen
for key assignments.

So long as the diplomatic effort is not allowed to dry up and crack from
sheer saplessness^ so long as there is a continuance of imaginative and
patient negotiation, the chance of sustained peace will remain alive, and

ON THE COMING OF WAR [ 363]

competent statesmen working together can file the jagged edges off their
points of conflict! For there is no good reason to believe that war is inevitable.
It is not a moral question. It is not caused by this or that condition or cir-
cumstance or person. The threat of war emerges from a long process of
complex causation, the roots of which are fixed in man's difficulty in
adapting to an ever changing environment.) Recognition by contending
statesmen of the universal human predicament is the foundation of the
compromises out of which peace diplomacy is constructed. Much of the
strength of America's great founders lay in their perception that the
unpopular word "compromise" contains the life-sustaining word "promise."
It is in the spread of this idea on a world scale that the hope of humanity
rests.

Bibliography

Those familiar with the historical literature of the period covered in this
book will recognize, as I do, my indebtedness to the historians and scholars
who have over the years diligently mined the available source material
Especially I am conscious of having depended heavily for data, dues and in-
sights on the splendid writings of Samuel Flagg Bemis and Henry Adams,
and on Herbert Butterfield's deep-probing studies in the methods of his-
toriography. I am grateful to Professor Butterfield for permission to quote
from his History and Human Relations, and The Whig Interpretation of
History. Claude Bowers, Gilbert Chinard, E. G. P. Fitzmaurice, E. W.
Lyon, Bernard Mayo, Carl Van Doren, and A. P. Whitaker are among the
other well-known historians and biographers whose work was of very great
value to me, although of course they cannot be held responsible for the in-
ferences that I have drawn.

This bibliography is conceived primarily as an acknowledgement of obliga-
tion, rather than as a guide to scholarship. While some manuscript sources
were examined, I cannot claim to have added anything significant in the
way of new factual material to the immense body of knowledge comprised
by the works listed below. The main research effort here has been to cor-
relate known data in such a way as to throw light on situations which,
historically, have been somewhat obscure. It is always difficult to comprehend
the actions of men, and especially of those who lived in the distant past^,
unless we know a good deal not only about their times, but also about the
specific information available to them at their moments of decision. To
estimate this information, world events need to be put in context, and
realistic allowance has to be made for the intervals necessary for the trans-
mission of news. Such correlations are more than ever essential if we are
to put ourselves in the place of the statesmen who dominated the Atlantic
nations in the age of the sailing vessel and the horse. My reconstructions of
motives and states of mind have been based largely on what these men
must have known, or could not have known, about events occurring at
some distance away. If certain reconstructions have been somewhat specula-
tive, so, I believe it is fair to say, are most historical interpretations of events
long gone by.

The present bibliography is limited to works from which data were taken,
or which opened up the road to other sources, or which helped to evoke a
feeling for the period and its personalities. It omits many books which

BIBLIOGRAPHY [ 365 ]

were consulted but found not specifically to the purpose. For convenience,
the listed works have been organized in categories: Specialized Historical
Studies; Historical Summaries; Biographies; Collected Works and Letters;
Government Documents; Manuscript Collections. To these listings have
been added an informal statement indicating works which especially aided
the writing of each chapter of the present volume. A great many other books
and articles, studies in the etiology of war and works of a general philosophi-
cal or sociological nature, which were read with one eye on the present
volume, have not been included, since their value was as general intellectual
conditioners rather than as source material.

In compiling the bibliography from my notes, I have repeatedly felt a
sense of gratitude to a number of librarians whose co-operation has been
extraordinarily helpful, over years of inquisitive reading. At the Library of
Congress (especially in the Division of Manuscripts), the Harvard College
Library, the New York Public Library (especially in the American History
and Rare Book Rooms), the Library of the British Museum, and the
Biblioth&que Nationale, I was given unstinted assistance by courteous men
and women whose sincere dedication to their work and whose generous
interest in mine made an unforgettable impression on me,

A.Z.C.

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the United States with England (1797), London, 1814.

Tansill, C. C., The United States and Santo Domingo (1798-1873), Baltimore,
1938.

Taylor, G. R., "Agrarian Discontent in the Mississippi Valley Preceding the
War of 1812," Mississippi Valley Historical Review, Vol. 10, 1924.

Tocqueville, Alexis de, The Old Regime and the French Revolution (tr. by
Stuart Gilbert), New York, 1955.

Tucker, Josiah, Four Letters (to Lord Shelburne) on Important National Sub-
jects, London, 1783.

Turner, F. J., The Significance of Sections in American History, New York,
1932.

Updyke, F. A,, Diplomacy of theWar of 1812, Baltimore, 1915,
Van Doren, Carl, The Great Rehearsal, New York, 1948.
Warren, Charles, The Making of the Constitution, New York, 1928.

Wead, Eunice, "British Public Opinion of the Peace with America, 1782,"

American Historical Review, Vol. 34, 1929.

Webster, A. W., Western Preliminaries of the War of 1812, St. Louis, 1926.
Whitaker, A. P., The Mississippi Question, New York, 1934,
White, E. B., American Opinion in France, New York, 1927.

Wood, George C., Congressional Control of Foreign Relations during the
American Revolution, Allentown, Pa., 1919.

Worthington, Thomas, Mss. Diary, 1801-13 (in Library of Congress),
Zimmerman, J. F., Impressment of American Seamen, New York, 1925.

BROAD HISTORICAL SUMMARIES

Adams, Henry, History of the United States during the Mmirwtratiorts of
Jefferson and Madison, New York, 1930.

Algernon, Cecil, British Foreign Secretaries, London, 1927,

[ 370 ] BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bailey, Thomas A., A Diplomatic History of the American People, New York,

1940.
Bemis, Samuel Flagg, A Diplomatic History of the United States, New York,

1936.

Bemis, Samuel Flagg (ed.), American Secretaries of State, New York, 1927.
Burt, A. L., The United States 9 Great Britain, and British North America, New

Haven, 1940.

Charming, Edward, History of the United States, New York, 1929.
Cheyney, E. P., Industrial and Social History of England, London, 1901.
Cobbett, William (ed.), Parliamentary History of England, London, 1812-20.
Darling, A. B., Our Rising Empire, New Haven, 1940.

Doniol, Henri, Histoire de la participation de la France & r&ablissement des
State-Urns d'Amerique, Paris, 1886.

Echeverria, Durand, Mirage in the West, Princeton, 1957.

Gordy, J. P., Political History of the United States, New York, 1908.

Lecky, W. E. H., History of England in the Eighteenth Century, Vols. 5, 6,
London, 1895.

Mahan, A. T. (Adm.), Sea-Power in its Relations to the War of 1812, New
York, 1921.
The Influence of Sea-Power on the French Revolution, Boston, 1892.

Turberville, Arthur S., The House of Lords in the Age of Reform, London, 1958.

Ward, A. W. and Gooch, G. P. (eds.), Cambridge History of Foreign Policy,
Cambridge, England, 1922.

BIOGRAPHIES

Adams, John Quincy, The Life and Character of James Madison, Boston, 1816.

Beveridge, Albert J., Life of John Marshall, Boston, 1916.

Bowers, Claude G., Jefferson and Hamilton, Boston, 1925.

Brant, Irving, James Madison: The President, 1809-1812, Indianapolis, 1956.

Brinton, Crane, The Lives of Talleyrand, New York, 1936.

Chinard, Gilbert, Honest John Adams, Boston, 1933.

Cleeves, Freeman, Old Tippecmoe: William Henry Harrison and His Times,

New York, 1939.

Dodd, Anna B,, Talleyrand, New York, 1927.

Fitzmaurice, Edward G. P., Life of William, Earl of Shelburne (with extracts
from correspondence), London, 1912.

Freeman, Douglas S., George Washington, New York, 1948-54.

Gay, Sidney H., James Madison ("American Statesmen Series' 1 ), Boston, 1885.

Godoy, Manuel de (Prince), Memoirs, London, 1836-38.

Hunt, Gailkrd, The Life of James Madison, New York, 1902.

BIBLIOGRAPHY [ 371 ]

James, James Alton, Oliver Pollock: The Life and Times of an Unknown Patriot,
New York, 1937.

Koch, Adrienne, Jefferson and Madison: The Great Collaboration, New York,
1950.

Las Cases, Emmanuel de, NapoUon prisonnier, Paris, 1896.

Lascelles, E. C. P., Life of Charks James Fox, Oxford, 1936.

Lodge, Henry Cabot, Alexander Hamilton, Boston, 1909.

Lodge, Henry Cabot (ed. ) , Life and Letters of George Cabot, Boston, 1 878.

Loth, David, Alexander Hamilton: Portrait of <t Prodigy, New York, 1936.

Lomnie, Louis de, Beaumarchais and his Times, London, 1856.

Marshall, Dorothy, The Rise of George Canning, London, 1938.

Mayo, Bernard, Henry Clay, Boston, 1937.

Meng, John J., The Comte de Vergennes, Philadelphia, 1929.

Minnegerode, Meade, Jefferson, Friend of France: the Career of Edmund
Charles Gen&t, New York, 1928.

Monaghan, Frank, John Jay, New York, 1935.

Morgan, George, The Life of James Monroe, Boston, 1921.

Parks, J. H., Felix Grundy, Baton Rouge, 1940.

Pellew, George, Life and Correspondence of the Rt. Hon. Henry Addington,
Viscount of Sidmouth, London, 1847.
John Jay, Boston, 1890.

Porter, K, W., John Jocofe Astor (Harvard Studies in Business History),
Cambridge, 1931.

Rose, J. H., William Pitt and the Great War, London, 1911.
William Pitt and National Revival, London, 1911.

Van Doren, Carl, BenjaminFrarildin, New York, 1956.
Wirt, William, Patrick Henry, Hartford, 1854,

*

COLLECTED WORKS AND LETTERS

Adams, Charles Francis (ed. ) , The Works of John Adams, Boston, 1856.
Letters of John and Abigail Adams, Boston, 1876.

Adams, Henry (ed.), Writing^ of Albert Gallatin, Philadelphia, 1879.
Ames, S. (ed.), Works of Fisher Ames, Boston, 1854.

Cousins, Norman (ed.), "In God We TrustsThe Religious Beliefs and Ideas
of the American Founding Fathers, New York, 1959.

Hamilton, S. F. (ed.) Writings ofjtmes Monroe, New York, 1878-1903.
Hunt,G (ed.), Writing^ of J(mesMadkon, New York, 1900-1910.

Johnston, Harry P. (ed.), Correspondence and Public Papers of John Jay, New
York, 1890-1893.

[ 37 2 1 BIBLIOGRAPHY

Lipscomb, A. A. and Bergh, A. E. (eds.), Writings of Thomas Jefferson, j

ington, 1903-1905.

Lodge, Henry Cabot (ed,) Works of Alexander Hamilton, New York, 1904.
Padover, Saul K. (ed.), The Complete Jefferson, New York, 1943.

Smith, Charles G. (ed.), "Letters of Benjamin Vaughan," Massachusetts His-
torical Society Proceedings, June, 1903.

Smyth, A. H. (ed.), Writings of Benjamin Franklin, New York, 1907,

GOVERNMENT DOCUMENTS

Annals [of Congress], Debates and Proceedings ist to i$th Congresses (1789-

1814), Washington, 1834.
Cobbett-Hansard, Parliamentary Debates, London, 1805-1812.

Commager, Henry Steele (ed.), Documents of American History, New York,
1940.

Lowrie, W. and Clarke, H. (eds.), American State PapersForeign Relations,
Washington, 1832.

Mayo, Bernard (ed.), Instructions to the British Ministers to the United
States, 1791-1812, American Historical Association, Annual Report, 1936.

U. S. Department of State, A Message of the President of the U.S. to Congress,
Dec. 5, 1793, Philadelphia, 1795.

Correspondence of U. S. Commissioners Pinckney, Marshall and Gerry
(1777-79), Washington, 1800,

Wait, T. B, (ed. ) , State Papers and Public Documents, Boston, 1817.

Wharton, Francis (ed.), Revolutionary Diplomatic Correspondence of the
United States, Washington, 1889.

MANUSCRIPT COLLECTIONS

Library of Congress, Archives des Affaires trang&res, Correspondence Politique,
tat$~Unis, Photostats.

New York Public Library (Bancroft Transcripts), Archives Frangaises: tat~
Urn's.

New York Public Library (Gordon Lester Ford Transcripts), British State
Papers, Ministry to the United States.

Archives of the Foreign Office, London, British State Papers relating to France
and the United States ( 1782-83 ) .

Library of Congress, Diary of Thomas Worthington ( 1 801-1 3 ) *

Library of Congress, Letters and Documents of Sir Augustus J. Foster, Bart.

(A long list of newspapers of the period, examined at the British Museum and
the Library of Congress, is omitted, since those of value to this book are
mentioned by name in the text.)

BIBLIOGRAPHY [ 373 ]

SPECIAL ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The recapitulation below is limited to those few books or articles which, for
each chapter, served to provide a springboard and a direction for the line
of thought.

PART ONE: Chapter I, THE SHELBURNE WAY: The Fitzmaurice Life of Lans-
downe, together with the Shelburne letters; Bemis's Diplomacy of the American
Revolution; Van Doren's Benjamin Franklin; and Wharton's Revolutionary
Diplomatic Correspondence proved especially valuable. Chapter II, ANXIETIES
OF A PATRIOT: This chapter drew heavily on de Tocqueville's The Old Regime
and the French Revolution; Bemis's Diplomacy of the American Revolution; on
Meng's The Comte de Vergennes; on DonioPs Histoire; and on Monaghan's
John Jay. Chapter III, THE RAYNEVAL AFFAIR: Bemis's "The Rayneval Mem-
orandum*' is the definitive source. Valuable insights were obtained from the
Shelburne papers in the archives of the British Foreign Office, the Benjamin
Vaughan letters, (C. C. Smith, ed.), Chinard's Honest John Adams, Van
Doren's Benjamin Franklin, Abernethy's Western Lands and the American
Revolution, and Edler's The Dutch Republic and the American Revolution.
Chapter IV, PANDORA'S TREATY: Bemis's Diplomacy of the American Revolution;
the Cambridge History of British Foreign Policy; and Channing's History of the
United States contributed greatly; as did Eunice Wead's article on "British
Public Opinion."

PART TWO: Chapter I, SECOND THOUGHTS OF A SECRETARY OF STATE: This
chapter drew especially on Whitaker's The Spanish-American Frontier; on
Chinard's Honest John Adams; on Bemis's Pinckney's Treaty, and his John
Jay ( in American Secretaries of State, Vol. i ) . Volume 3 of Jay's Correspondence
and Public Papers (H. P. Johnston, ed.) was continuously useful. Chapter II,
AMERICA BECOMES CAPABLE OF WAR: Van Doren's Great Rehearsal; Charles
Warren's Making of the Constitution; Elliott's Debates in the State Conven-
tions, and Wood's Congressional Control opened up important avenues of
thought. Chapter III, THE NOOTKA CRISIS: Clues to motivations in this affair
were found in Manning's "Nootka Sound Controversy," Fitzmaurice's Life of
Lansdowne and E, D. Adams's Influence of Grenvitte. Chapter IV, GRENVILLE
vs, JEFFERSON: Bailey's Diplomatic History of the American People, Adams's
Influence of Grenvitte, Bemis's Jay's Treaty, and Rose's biographical studies of
Pitt were especially helpful.

PART THREE: Chapter I, PERSONA NON GRATA: This chapter drew on Hazen's
Contemporary American Opinion of the French Revolution, Minnegerode's
Jefferson, Friend of France, and Didier's "Le Citoyen Gen6t"; and found useful
indications in Channing's History of the United States, Vol. 4, and Thomas's
American Neutrality, in 1793. Chapter II, THE SUCCESSFUL MAN: Bowers's
Jefferson and Hamilton, Lodge's Life and Letters of George Cabot and his
Alexander Hamilton; Padover's Jefferson, and Bemis's Jay's Treaty strongly con-
tributed to this chapter. Chapter III, "THIS DAMNED TREATY": Monaghan's
John Jay; Bemis's Jafs Treaty and Pinckney's Treaty; Darling's Our Rising
Empire; and Bailey's Diplomatic History were outstandingly useful. Chapter IV,
x Y z: This chapter drew on E. W. Lyon's article "The Directory and the
United States/' on Beveridge's Life of John Marshall, Henry Adams's Life of
Gelatin. Chapter V, WITCH HUNT: Gilbert Chinard's Honest John Adams,
Lyon's Franco-American Convention of 1800 and B. Fay's Revolutionary Spirit

[ 374 ] BIBLIOGRAPHY

in France and America were useful here, together with Gordy's Political History,
Vol. I. Chapter VI, THE PENDULUM SWINGS: Valuable data and viewpoints were
obtained from Lodge's Alexander Hamilton, Bowers's Jefferson and Hamilton,
Chinard's Thomas Jefferson, Adams's Life of Gdlatin, Padover's Mind of
Alexander Hamilton; and Rose's William Pitt and the Great War. Chapter VII,
A TIME FOR HOPE: Padover's Complete Jefferson, the studies of Henry Addington
by Pellew and Bulwer-Lytton and Adams's History, Vol. I, were especially help-
ful

PART FOUR: Chapter I, THE TRIGGERING OF WAR: Whitaker's The Mississippi
Question, Lyon's The Mm Who Sold Louisiana and Louisiana in French
Diplomacy, and Tansill's United States and Santo Domingo were major sources
of data, together with Henry Adams's History of the United States 9 Vols. 2 and
3. It should be noted that the affair of the Mississippi deposit baffled a long
series of conscientious historians until Whitaker's scholarly work revealed
Godoy's presumptive part in it, and made possible a reconstruction of the plot.
Chapter II, THE HEADY WINE OF EMPIRE: I. J. Cox's The West Florida Contro-
versy, A. C. Clauder's study, American Commerce, helped to condition this
chapter which also drew strongly on Adams's History, Vols. 3 and 4. Chapter III,
"WAR IN DISGUISE": James Stephen's book and Alexander Baring's reply, the
Adams History, Vols. 3 and 4, and Bailey's invaluable Diplomatic History
provided important foundation materials here. Chapter IV, PASSIVE RESISTANCE:
E. F. Hecksher's study, The Continental System was instructive; and also Up-
dyke's Diplomacy of the War of 1812, and Zimmerman's Impressment of
American Seamen. Chapter V, "OGRABME": The Cambridge History of Foreign
Policy ; Adams's History, Vol. 4, Gordy's Political History, Sears's Jefferson and
the Embargo, and Lambert's Travels in Canada provided the broad framework
of fact for this chapter. Chapter VI, THE ERSKINE FIASCO: Significant parts of the
Erskine correspondence with Canning quoted in the Adams History, Vol. 5
and C. C. Tansill's sketch of the career of Secretary of State Robert Smith, in
American Secretaries of State, Vol. 31, (S. F. Bernis, ed.) were the sources of
greatest value. Chapter VII, THE CADORE LETTER: P. A. Heath's Napoleon I
and the Origins of the Anglo-American War of 1812, and Clauder's American
Commerce provided a great deal of valuable derail, supplementing the thorough
treatment in the Adams's History. Chapter VIII, VOICES OF THE FRONTIER:
Sources of great value to this chapter included Mayo's Henry Clay; Pratfs
EKpansionists of 1812; Cleeves's Old Tippecmoe; Webster's Western Prelimi-
naries of the War of 1812, and articles cited above by L. M. Hacker, G. R.
Taylor, R. T. Anderson and H. T, Lewis. Chapter IX, SCRUPLE AND INHIBITION:
Light on the attitudes of the American Congress came from E. B. White's
American Opinion of France, from the chapters on Robert Smith and James
Monroe in American Secretaries of State and from Gordy's Political Hivtory*
Chapter X, THE CRILLON COMEDY: The chief sources for this chapter were
Samuel Eliot Morison's article, "The Hemy-Crillon Afiair of 1812"; Henry
Adams's article, "Count Edward de Critton"; the S6rurier correspondence
quoted in Adams's History, Vol. 6, and an article signed Caraman, in the Revue
Contemporame for August 1852. Chapter XI, THE BULLET OF CHANCE: Augustus
Foster's manuscript Letters and Diary and British newspapers of the period
provided useful supplements to Mayo's Henry Clay, the Adams History, and the
Cambridge History. Chapter XII, "CHAFF BEFORE THE WIND": John Lowell's
Mr. Madison's Wczr, proved useful in conjunction with Adams's History, Vols. 5

BIBLIOGRAPHY [ 375]

and 6, and Mayo's Henry CZoy. Chapter XIII, "GREATEST OF ALL THE LESSONS":
This chapter drew on Bailey's Diplomatic History, Updyke's Diplo-
macy, of the War of 1812, Dwight's History of the Hartford Convention, Mayo's
Henry Clay, Adams's Gdlatin, and the Adams History, Vols. 6 and 7*

Index

Aboukir, 151

Act of Union, 177

Adams, Abigail, 55

Adams, Charles Francis, 343

Adams, Henry, 343

Adams, John, 24, 35, 36, 37, 42, 44, 49,
50; Alien and Sedition Acts, 163-66;
elected President, 133-35; final ap-
pointments, 175, 184-85; Hamilton
and, 150-51; minister to Court of St.
James, 61, 62, 66; Paris treaty com-
missioner, 46-48; Treaty of Paris
(1783), 49-57; Vice-President under
Washington, 76, 80

Adams, John Quincy, 248, 258, 336, 340

Adams, Samuel, 125

Addington, Henry, 179, 180, 181, 186,
189, 190, 191, 192, 193, 194, 195-
98, 203, 209, 218, 320

Adet, Pierre, 93, 132

Alexander I, Czar, i8i> 201, 243, 275,
279,319,334

Alexander, Franz, 346

Algiers, 71, 109, 102

Alien Act, 163-66, 184

Allen, Ethan, 67

Allen, Ira, 67

Allen, Third Lieutenant, 240

Ames, Fisher, 129-30, 161, 163, 208

Amherstberg, Fort, 292, 294

Amiens treaty, 191, 192, 193, 195, 196

Amsterdam, 36

Armed Neutrality, 34, 176, 181, 186

Armstrong, General John, 215, 231, 257-
c8, 273, 274, 275, 280, 281-82, 283

Arnold, Benedict, 18

Arnold, Matthew, 352

Astor, John Jacob, 253-54, 309, 330

Austerlte, 233, 235, 236

Austria, 176, 274

Bank of the United States, 86, 286-87,

288

Barbary pirates, 71, 182, 186
Barb&Marbois, 42, 210, 211, 212
Baring, Alexander, 213
Barlow, Tod, 140, 302, 316, 322, 323
Barras, raul, 138, 141, 143, 151, 190
Barron, Captain James, 239-41
Bayard, James, 174, 315, 317

Bayonne Decree, 257-58, 265

Beard, Charles, 352

Beauharnais, Eugene, Prince, 256

Beaumarchais, Pierre, 137, 145

Beckwith, Lieut. Colonel, 80, 87

Beethoven, Ludwig von, 195

Bellamy, M., 143, 144, 145, 146, 148

Bellingham, 321

Bemis, S, F,, 103

Bentharn, Jeremy, 21, 117

Berkeley, Admiral, 241, 242, 246, 266

Berlin crisis, 343

Berlin Decree, 236-37, 238, 249, 281,

286, 288

Bernadotte, Marshal, 279
Beurnonville, General de, 201, 204
Bill of Rights, 74
Blockades, 249, 329
Blount, William, 80
Bonaparte, Joseph, 156, 157, 192, 193,

210

Bonaparte, Louis, 257, 279
Bonaparte, Lucien, 156, 210
Bonaparte, Napoleon, 106, 139, 141, 146,

151, 156-57, 158, 178, 180, 181, 183,

l86, 189, 192, 193, 200, 202, 203,
206, 209-10, 211, 212, 2l6, 227,

233, 235-36, 243, 249; Bayonne De-
cree, 257-58, 265; Berlin Decree,
236-37, 238, 249, 281, 286, 288;
good neighbor policy, 256-58; Milan
Decree, 250, 274, 281, 286, 288; on
Elba, 338; St. Cloud Decree, 322-23,
331; sympathy from, 273-74; trade-
by-exception decree, 274-75, 279;
Trianon order, 281; Vienne Decree,
274; war with Russia, 279-80, 334

Bosanquet, Charles, 230

Braddock, General, 83

Brant, Joseph, 71

Breckenridge, Senator, 214, 217

Brillon, Mme., 19

British Consolidated Funds, 18

British West Indies, 227, 230, 234

Erode, General, 333

Broken voyage doctrine, 226-27, 228-29,
230

Brougham, Henry, 319, 320, 324

Surges, Sir James, 82

Burke, Aedanus, 164

[ 378 ] INBEX

Burke, Edmund, 23, 29, 53, 84, 93, 117
Burr, Aaron, 103, 133, 135, 168-09, 171-

72, 174~75, 207, 208, 221, 241

Butterfield, Herbert, 9, 333, 348

Cabot, George, 113, 114, 139, 154, 158,

160, 161, 165, 184, 260
Cadore, Due de, 274, 275, 280, 281-82,

283

Cadore letter, 273-91, 303, 307, 323
Calhoun, John, 166, 299, 303, 306, 326,

329

Callender, 165

Campaign of 1800, presidential, 167-75
Canada, 25-26, 39, 40, 49, 56, 120, 232,

292, 306, 331, 333-34, 339> 357 f
Canning, George, 196, 218, 242, 245-46,

249, 256, 264, 265, 269, 270, 272,

275, 279, 283, 320
Cape of Good Hope, 186-87
Cargoes, search and seizure, 137
Carnot, Lazar, 106
Castiereagh, Lord, 292, 315, 319, 320,

324, 327, 328, 338
Catherine II, 34
Catholic Emancipation, 179
Cause of war, question or, 351-54
Cevallos, Pedro, 204, 205
Ceylon, 186

Chamberlain, Houston Stewart, 346
Champagny (Due de Cadore), 274, 275,

280, 281-82, 283
Champlain, Lake, 337
Charles III, 69, 78,
Charles IV, 126, 127, 183, 198, 200, 205,

212

Charles XIV, 279
Charleston, 94, 252
Charlotte, Queen, 117
Chatham, Earl of, 82
Chauvelin, 84
Chesapeake affair, 239-41, 242, 244, 246,

258, 265, 266, 270, 294, 297, 301,

35> 357

Chesterton, G. K., 195
Cholmondeley, Lord, 19, 20, 22
Civil War, American, 359
Claiborne, W, C. C., 217, 285
Clark, George Rogers, 38, 100
Claus, Colonel William, 294
Clausewitz, General, 106
Clay, Henry, 278, 287, 296-98, 299, 303-

4> 3*3* 3*5> 3 a 5-*6 3 2 7> 33> 33*
336,340
Clinton, De Witt, 101, 289, 316, 327,

333>334

Clinton, George, 221, 287
Clinton, Sir Henry, 55
Cobbett, William, 94, 99, 196-97, 229
Cold War, 353

Coleridge, Samuel, 84
Commager, Henry S., 362
Commercial agreement, 53, 55
Communism, 353
Compromise, spirit of, 347-48
Constellation, U.S.S., 156
Constitution, U.S.S., 334
Constitutional Convention, 72-74
Continental Congress, 24, 36, 63
Continental System, 255, 257, 275, 279,

280

Convention of 1800, 158
Cook, Captain James, 77
Copenhagen, 181, 243
Cornwallis, General Charles, 18, 191, 193
Cotton gin, 119, 178
Craig, Sir James, 253, 260, 292, 294, 295,

310, 311, 337

Crillon, Count Edward de, 310-14, 316
Cuvier, 194

Dallas, Secretary of State, 98

Dana, Representative, 268

Danton, 96, 100

D'Aranda, Count, 32, 38

Davie, William R, 155, 156, 158

Deane, Silas, 46

Dearborn, General, 331

Declaration of Independence, 74

Delacroix, 131

Democratic Party, 86

Democratic-Republican Party, 86

Denmark, 231, 243, 279

Despard, 194

Detroit, 115, 333, 334

Dickinson, G. Lowes, 351

Directory, the, 132, 137, 138, 142, 144,

146, 151, 155, 156
Dorchester, Lord, 109, 112, 113, 118
Dostoyevski, 180
Dulles, John Foster, 348, 349
Du Pont de Nemours, Pierre Samuel, 183,

199-200
Dutch loan, 48, 52

East Florida, 287, 316, 339
East India Company, 119, 226
Elba, 195, 338
Electoral College, 133, 134
Ellsworth, Oliver, 113, 114, 155, 156, 158
Emancipation Act, 177
Embargo policy, 111, 112, 113, 247-48,
249-03, 264, 265, 269, 315-16, 322,

Enabling Act, 40

Enforcement Act, 359, 260

Erskine, David Montague, 238, 242, 24%,

261, 264, 265-68, 270
Erving, George, 214
Essex decision, 228-29, 232^ 232, 237

Essex Junto, 161, 241, 312
Eustis, William, 290

Fallen Timbers, battle of, 120

Farewell Address, Washington's, 133-34

Fatalism in war, 345

Fauchet, 101, 112, 126

Fi6v6e, Joseph, 190, 191

Filibuster, first, 288

Fishing rights, Newfoundland, 39, 40, 43,

44, 51, 56
Floridablanca, Count, 31, 32, 33, 38, 45,

52, 68, 80, 81
Floridas, 44, 50, 68, 70, 80, 200, 208, 211,

233, 258, 284-85, 287, 289, 299,

306, 335, 336, 339; see dso East

Florida; West Florida
Foster, Augustus, 286, 301, 303, 307, 313,

314, 320, 327, 329, 330, 331
Fouche, 317
Fox, Charles James, 21, 22, 26, 28-29,

54, 55, 84, 118, 177, 193-94, 228,

2 33> 2 35> 2 3 6

France, 32-34, 35-36, 52, 64-65, 84-85,
91-02, 131-32

France, Anatole, 345

Franklin, Benjamin, 27-28, 31, 34, 35,
36, 38, 39, 40, 43, 44; Adams' esti-
mate of, 46-47; conference with Jay
in Paris, 32, 34; Constitution ap-
proved by, 74; fame in Europe, 42;
letter to Shelburne, 18-20; meeting
with Grenville in Paris, 28-29; meet-
ing with Oswald in Paris, 22-23, 2 4~
26; separate peace with England, ques-
tion of, 41-42; Treaty of Paris (1783) ,

49-57

Franklin, William, 26
Frederick the Great, 105
Frederick William III, 236
Free trade, 50, 66

French Revolution, 78, 84, 85-86, 356
French West Indies, 106, 108, 226
Freneau, Philip, 95, 99
Frere, John, 198, 201, 203
Freud, Sigmund, 346, 347, 352
Fries, 154
Fullarton, Colonel, 19

Gatora, Albert, 73, 129, 151, 163, 173,
174, 184, 200, 224, 226, 241, 247,
251, 254, 258, 259, 275, 277, 281,
286-87, 289, 309, 316, 328, 330, 334,

335' 33^ 337> 34^
Gandhi, Mahatma, 248
Gardenier, Barent, 251
Gardoqui, Don Diego de, 68
Gauss, 194
Genet, Citizen Edmond, 92-100

INDEX [ 379 ]

George III, 18, 20, 21, 54, 79, 82, 121,
177, 194, 197, 239, 246, 270, 315

George IV (Prince Regent), 315, 320,
322, 324

George Wds/izngton, man-of-war, 182

GeVard, Conrad, 39

Gerry, Eldridge, 72, 140-50, 153

Ghent, treaty of, 336-40

Gibralter, 34, 38, 43, 45

Girondist party, 100

Gladstone, William, 72

Godoy, Manuel de, 126-27, 198, 200-2,
203, 204, 206, 207, 209

Gordon, Lord George, 23

Grand Banks fishing rights, 39, 40, 43,

44> 5 1 * S 6

Grenville, Thomas, 28-29

Grenville, William W., Baron, 79, 82-88,
95, 102, 104, 105-7, lo8 > 112 Il6 >
118, 122, 176, 177-78, 181, 218, 193,

222, 228, 233, 236, 237

Grundy, Felix, 305-6

Guerrifoe, British frigate, 290, 334

Guiana, 187, 195

Haldimand, General, 54

Hamilton, Alexander, 63, 74, 80; acting
head of army, 150; ascendant, 109-
12; Burr and, 174-75; campaign of
1800, 167-75; criticism of, 125;
election of 1796, 133-35; election of
1800, 162-63; Genet and, 97-100;
Hammond confident of, 107, 121,
124; Jay and, 169-70; Jefferson and,
109-10; reaction to French Revolu-
tion, 86; reaction to Jay's Treaty,
123-24; style of, 102-4; successful
man, 102-15

Hammarskjold, Dag, 349-50

Hammond, George, 87-88, 97, 102, 103,
107, 108, 113, 121, 124, 126

Hanover, Electorate of, 235-36

Harmer, General Josiah, 83

Harrison, Benjamin, 68

Harrison, William Henry, 292, 293-94,
29*, 296,^04

Harrowby, Lord, 222-23, 225-20

Hartford Convention 335

Hartley, David, 55

Hauteval, Lucien, 143, 148

Henry, Captain John, 310, 311-14, 316,
318

Henry, Patrick, 69, 134, 155

Hitler, Adolf, 349

Holland, 48

Honduras, 33

Hottdnguer, Jean Conrad, 142, 143, 144,
148

House of Representatives, 128-30

Howick, Lord, 235

[ 580 ] INDEX

Hull, General William, 331, 333
Humphreys, Captain, 240, 241

Illmois-Wabash Company, 47

Imminence of war, 343-44

Imperialism, 306, 346

Impressment issue, 108, 123, 137, 160-61,
182, 224-26, 234-35, 238, 241, 247,
264, 288, 305, 328-29, 332, 338-39

Indian Confederation, 71

Indians, 39, 54, 61, 67, 71, 82-83, 88, 95,
115, 292, 293-96, 304, 336-37

Industrial revolution, 17

Inevitability of war, 343-48

Iran crisis, 343

Irish immigration, 162, 164

Irujo, Spanish Minister, 207, 209, 213, 214

Irving, Washington, 283

Italy, 193

Jackson, Andrew, 241, 304, 336, 340

Jackson, Francis James, 270, 271-72, 279,
310, 318

Jacobins, 100

Jamappes, battle of, 84

Java, British warship, 334

Jay, John, 24; Barbary pirates and, 71;
Chief Justice of Supeme Court, 76,
99; conference with Franklin in Paris,
32, 34; criticism of, 124-25; Governor
of New York, 124; Hamilton and,
169-70; meeting with Oswald, 36-37,
40-41; mission to Spain, 31-32; Sec-
retary of State, 61-70; separate peace
with England, question of, 41-42,
44-45; treason of, 65-66; Treaty of
Paris (1783), 49-57; treaty with Eng-
land, 114, 116-35; Vergennes and,

T 35-? 6 > 39> 43

Jay, Sarah, 31, 32, 42, 69

Jay's Treaty (1794), 116-35, 137, 138,
160, 162, 178, 356

Jefferson, Thomas, Alien and Sedition
Acts, 163; Bill of Rights, 74; cam-
paign of 1800, 168-75; doctrine of
recognition, 91; elected President,
171-75; embargo policy, 247-48,
249-63; Grenville vs., 82-88; Hamil-
ton and, 109-10; Hamiltonian, as,
216-18; honor, a matter of, 243-45;
Kentucky Resolutions, 165-66; Non-
Importation Act, 233; peace aims,
180-86, 208; reaction to French
Revolution, 86; reaction to Genet, 97,
98-99; reaction to Jay's Treaty, 120;
red-paUtik of, 213-16; resignation
from State Department, 107-8; re-
tirement to Monticello, 261-63; San
Ildefonso Treaty, 198-200; Secretary

of State, 76, 87-88; Vice-President,
133-35; West Florida and, 214-16

'ena, 236

ohnson, Andrew, 129

"ohnson, Richard M., 279

'ohnson, Sam, 345

'osephine, Empress, 190, 236

"oubert, General, 1 56

Junot, General, 256

Kellogg-Briand pact, 361
Kentucky Resolutions, 165-66, 216
King, Rufus, 99, 113, 114, 129, 150, 182,

185, 198, 334
Kipling, Rudyard, 11
Knox, Henry, 80, 83
Korean crisis, 343

Lafayette, Marquis de, 45, 67, 137

Lambert, John, 251-52

L'Ambigu, 189, 190, 192

Lansdowne, Lord, 85

Lansdowne, Marquess of, 319

Laurens, Henry, 24

Leaders for peace, 348

Leahy, Admiral William, 343

Leclerc, General, 186, 202, 205

Lee, Arthur, 46"

Leeds, Duke of, 61, 62

Leopard, H.M.S., 239-40, 242, 357

Lewis, Meriwether, 183

Limited war, concept of, 347

Lincoln, Abraham, 262

L'lnsurgenre, French frigate, 156

Liston, Robert, 178

Lttife Belt affair, 280-91, 301

Little Sarah affair, 95-100, 102, 104

Little Turtle, 82-83, 88, 115, 120

Liverpool, Lord, 324, 338

Livingston, Robert, 18, 34, ^6, 61, 185,

186, 199, 200, 206, 200, 211, 212,
216, 257

Loughborough, Lord Chancellor, 117
Louis XVI, 33, 76, 78, 85
Louisiana, 31, 08, 80, 93, 152, 157, 183,
195, 197-98, 199, 200-1, 203, 204-
- 5, 206-7, 208-11, 218
Louisiana Purchase, 208-11, 213, 216, 356
L'Ouverture, Toussaint, 186, 189, 202
Loyalists' issue, 40, 49-50, 56, 120
Luddities, 318

Luisa, Queen, 126, 198, 200, 204
LuneviUe, 176
Lyon, Representative, 165

Macdonongb, Commodore Thonxas, 337
Macon, Nathaniel, 275,, 378^ 305, 308,

3*3

Maecm's Bill, 275-78

Macon's Bill No, 2, 278-79, 280^ 287, 288

Madison, Dolly, 283

Madison, James, 99, 109, no; Cadore
letter, 282-83, 284-85; Crillon
comedy, 310-17; declaration of war,
328-29; Little Belt affair, 289-91;
presidency, 265, 266, 282-83, 3 O2 ~3>
317; re-elected President, 334; renom-
ination for presidency, 327; Secretary
of State, 198, 200, 207, 213, 224,
230, 232; Virginia Resolutions, 166

Madrid, 31

Maine boundary, 56

Malta, 186, 192, 193, 195, 203, 210

Manifest Destiny, 128

Marat, 96, 100

Marengo, 158, 176

Maret, Hugues (Due de Bassano), 322-23

Marshall, John, 92, 114; Alien and Sedi-
tion Acts, 165; Chief Justice of
Supreme Court, 175, 184; Secretary
of State, 158; XYZ affair, 141-50

Marx, Karl, 353

Mason, Stevens, 125

Matthews, General, 313, 316

McHenry, Secretary of War, 140, 155,
171

Merry, Anthony, 21820, 221, 233, 238

Mexico, 200

Miami, Fort, 115, 118, 120

Mifflin, Thomas, 97, 98, 99, 111

Milan Decree, 250, 274, 281, 286, 288

Mirabeau, 78

Miranda, Francisco de, 76-77, 81, 150

Mississippi River, 49, 67-68, 69, 70, 80,

w t 127,203,207, 297

Mobile, 200, 201, 202, 203, 284

Mobile Act, 214, 215, 222

Molotov, V. M,, 348

Monroe, James, 73, 131-32, 139; Louisi-
ana Purchase envoy, 208, 211, 212;
minister to Spain, 214; Monroe-
Pinckney Treaty, 234-35, 237, 238;
Secretary of State, 289-90, 302-3,
308, 312

Monroe Doctrine, 81

Monroe-Pintdcney Treaty, 234-35, 2 37*
238

Morales, Juan, 205, 209

Moral question in war, 348

Moreau, General, 156

Morier, John, 272

Morocco, 71

Morris, Gouverneur, 100, 101

Murray, William Vans, 153, 154, 155, 158

Natchez, 50, 67, 68

National Assembly^ 78

National Convention, French, 85, 91, 93,

100

lntdMgmor, 326

INDEX [ j8l ]

Nationalism, 346, 352-53

Nelson, Lord Horatio, 151, 181, 225, 231

Neutrality Proclamation, 92, 95, 99, 100,

112

Newburyport, 260
New Orleans, 67, 68, 80, 100, 127, 198,

199, 200, 201, 204, 206, 207, 208,

209,218,336,337,340
New York City, 251
Niagara, 333, 334, 337
Nicholas, Senator, 216
Non-Importation Act, 233, 238, 246-47,

2 53
Non-Intercourse Act, 261, 265, 267, 269,

275, 280, 303
Nootka crisis, 76-82, 83
North, Lord, 18, 54
Northwest Territory, 83, 186
Noiiy, Lecomte de, 352
Nova Scotia, 232
Nuclear war, 301

Ogilvie, William, 24

Orange, Prince of, 48

Orders in Council, British, 103-5, *7>
108, 112, 113, 117, 237, 238, 247,
249, 254, 255, 260, 264, 267, 268,
270, 279, 283, 288, 301, 304, 305,
314, 318, 319, 320, 322, 324, 325,
328, 329, 331, 3^6

Oregon controversy (1844), 81

Oswald, Richard, 22-23, 24-26, 28, 36-
37, 40-41, 44, 45, 47, 49, 50, 51, 55,
80

Otto, Louis-Guillaunie, 152, 190

Pacific Northwest, 81

Paine, Thomas, 63, 136, 182

Paris, 33, 35

Paris Convention (1800), 178

Parker, Admiral, 181

Parma, Duke of, 198

Paul, Czar, 176, 181

Peace-diplomacy, experiment in, 247-48,

249-63, 345
Peltier, Jean, 189, 190
Pensacola, 200, 201, 202
Perceval, Spencer, 239, 243, 249, 255,

264, 270, 272, 318-21
P&ez, Juan, 77
Perry, Commodore, 358
Pestalozzi, 195
Philadelphia, 94, 97
Pichon, 153, 206, 207-8
Pickering, Timothy, 139, 140, 153, 154,

ice, 156, 158, 170* 184, 208, 259-60,

288, 291
Pindbiey, Charles Cotesworth, 132, 134,

135, 139, 140, i4i~50 167, 170,

171, 259, 283

[ 382 ] INBEX

Pmckney, General Thomas, 105-7, 108,
112, 113, 127-28, 132, 170

Pinckney Treaty (1795), 126-28, 204

Pinkney, William, 234-35, 237, 238, 246,
255, 256, 264, 271, 286

Pirates, 71, 109, 182, 186

Pitt, William, 29, 36, 53, 57, 62, 66, 71-
72, 77-78, 79, 81, 82, 104, 113, 117,
176, 177-80, 181, 193, 194, 196, 228,
231, 233; Miranda and, 76-77; pre-
dicts peace with France, 83-85; pres-
sures on, 221-23

Political Register, 196, 197, 229

Poor Laws, 23-24

Potsdam Treaty, 343

Predestination, doctrines of, 345

President, U.S. frigate, 290-91

Priestley, Dr. Joseph, 164

Privateers, 94, 95, 97, 98-100, 123, 141,
156, 228-29, 334

Prussia, 235-36

Punqua Wingchong, 253-54

Quincy, Josiah, 261, 326

Randolph, Edmund, 108, 111, 112, 118,

123, 125-26
Randolph, John, 214, 233, 269, 288, 303-

4, 306, 317

Randolph, Thomas, 261
Rayneval, G&ard de, 38, 39, 41, 43-44,

Rebellion, wars of, 3

Regional interest, differences in, 70
Religious wars, 359
Republican Party, 86
Robespierre, 100, 105, 106
Rockingham, Marquis of, 20, 21, 22, 26,

28,29

Rodney, Admiral George, 34
Root of war, 360-63
Rose, George, 246, 258
Rosenberg, Alfred, 346
Royal Exchange, 18
Rule of 1756, 104, 105, 106, 108, 123,

226, 228, 229, 230, 249, 264, 267,

270, 356

Russell, Bertrand, 351, 352
Russell, Jonathan, 202, 286, 321-22, 323,

3 2 4> 33*> 339
Russell, Lord, 343
Russell, M., 323
Russia, 34, 79, 157, 176, 181, 275, 279,

280, 319, 334, 346
Russo-Japanese War, 357-58
Rutledge, John, 125

St. Glair, General Arthur, 83
St. Cloud Decree, 322-23, 331
St. Cyr, 201

San Bdefonse Treaty, 198, 199, 200, 201,

205
Santo Domingo, 187, 189, 195, 202, 203,

205-6, 207, 238
Savannah incident, 308
Scheldt River, 84
Scott, Sir William, 229
Secession, 335
Second Coalition, 176
Sedgwick, Theodore, no, 154
Sedition Act, 163-66, 184
Separate peace with England, 41-42, 43,

4445
S6urier, 286, 302, 303, 308, 310, 312, 316,

322, 323

Seven Nations, 294-95
Shays, Daniel, 63, 73-74
Sheffield, Lord, 66, 67, 121
Shelbume, Lord (William Petty-Fit^

maurice), 1820, 22-28, 29-30, 36,

37,40,43,45,48 49-57,79
Sheridan, Richard Bnnsley, 218
Shipping, American, 226
Ship seizures, indemnity for, 123, 234-35,

3 2 9> 339

Sidmouth, Lord, 320
Simcoe, John, 115, 118, 120
Slater, Samuel, 119
Slavery, Negro, 136, 299
Slave seizures, 120
Slave trade, 299, 339-40
Smith, Adam, 21, 66
Smith, Robert, 241, 254, 265-67, 271,

272, 277, 282, 285, 286, 289, 290
Smith, Samuel, 265, 268, 277, 278
Smugglers, 255, 333
Social Darwinism, 346
Soler, 204, 205
Sorokin, Pitirim, 352
Spain, 31-32, 38, 52, 67, 68-70, 81, 93,

126-28, 207
Spender, 353
Spinning machine, 119
Stael, Mme. de, 137
Stephen, James, 230, 238, 245, 249
Strachey, Henry, 49, 50, 51
Sullivan, Governor, 254
Suvarov, General, 155
Switzerland, 193

Talleyrand, Charles Maurice, 178, 183,
192, 201, 210-12, 215, 231, 274;
Foreign Minister, 137-39; gambit,
141-43; on America, 130-37; XYZ
affair, 139-59

Tammany Society, 168, 169

Tarirrs, protective, 197

Tecumseh, 293, 294-95

Temple^ Sir John, 65

Tennessee Valley, 68

Tenskwatawa (the Prophet), 293-94, 295
Texas, 211, 299
Third Coalition, 233
Thornton, Edward, 203, 207, 208
Ticonderoga, Fort, 83
Tilsit, treaty of, 243
Tippecanoe, 296, 304, 306
Tipu Sahib, 176
Tocqueville, Alexis de, 85, 212
Tone, Wolfe, 176
Totalitarianism,
Total war, 105-6
Toynbee, Arnold, 353
"Trade by exception" decree, 274-75, 2 79
Trade with England, 63-64, 66-67
Trade with Spain, 69
Trafalgar, 231

Treaty of Paris (1783), 49-57, 122
Trianon order, 281
Trieste crisis, 343
Trinidad, 186
Tripoli, 71, 182

Troop withdrawal, 40, 120, 121, 130
True Briton, The, 190
Truxton, Commodore, 156
Tunis, 71
Turgot, 33, 42

Turreau, General Louis-Marie, 232, 238,
243, 266, 274, 286

Ulm, 233

United Nations, 349-50, 352, 361, 362

Vancouver Island, 77

Vaughan, Benjamin, 42, 43, 44, 53

Vegetius, 347

Vergennes, Count de, 33-34, 35, 36, 38,

42, 43, 45, 46, 50, 51-52, 65, 182
Vienna Decree, 274
Villette, Mme. de, 145
Virginia Resolutions, 166

Wagram, 274

Wcrr in Disguise, 229-31

"War-in-disguise" policy, 224-33, 238,

249, 318
War Department, 330, 335

INDEX [ 383 ]

War of 1812, 333-40; causation, web of,

354-57; declaration, 325-29
War Hawks, 298-300, 303, 304, 305, 307,

vr 3 \ S ~ l6t 517 ' 326 > 32<7

War phenomenon, nature of, 351, 354
Washington, D.C., British raid on, 336
Washington, George, 18, 67, 69, 72, 80;
army for Northwest ordered by, 83;
commander-in-chief of army, 149-50;
criticism of, 97; death, 157; elected
first President, 74; Farewell Address,
133-34; Gent and, 94-95, 96, 99,
100; Hamilton and, 102-3; House of
Representatives and, 128-29; reaction
to Jay's Treaty, 123, 125; recognition
of French Republic, 91; western
country investigated by, 68

Wayne, General Anthony, iijj, 118, 120

Wellesley, General Arthur, 250, 273, 283-
84, 285, 315, 338

Wellesley, Richard, 319

Wellington, Duke of; see Wellesley,
General Arthur

West Florida, 50, 56, 68, 127, 200, 201,
202, 203, 204, 214-16, 222, 231, 238,
284, 285, 287

West Indies, 53, 67, 95, 103, 106, 108,
226, 227, 230, 234

Whisky rebellion, 111, 163

Whitney, Eli, 119, 178

Whitworth, Lord, 210, 212

Wilberforce, William, 299

Wilkinson, General, 70

Wilson, Woodrow, 91

Windham, William, 195, 218

Wolcott, Secretary of Treasury, 140, 154,
155, 158, 160, 161, 171

Wordsworth, William, 84, 194

World Court, 361

World War I, 358-59

Worthington, Thomas, 317, 325

Wright, Quincy, 352

XYZ affair, 136-59

Yellow fever epidemics, 97, 128, 205

1 36 090